^ 

41*. 


JOHN  JAY 


AMERICA'S 
FOREIGN    RELATIONS 


BY 
WILLIS  FLETCHER  JOHNSON,  A.M.,  L.H.D., 

Honorary  Professor   of  the  History  of  American   Foreign  Relations 

in  New  York  University;   Author  of  "A  Century  of  Expansion," 

"Parsifal  and  the  Holy  Grail,"  "Four  Centuries  of  the  Panama 

Canal,"    "Colonel    Henry    Ludington:     A   Memoir,"    etc. 


WITH  PORTRAITS 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 

VOLUME  ONE 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Published,  April,  1916 


TO 

MY  ALMA  MATER 
NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY 


PREFACE 

It  is  my  purpose  to  write  a  History  of  the  Foreign  Relations 
of  the  United  States  of  America.  I  shall  begin  it  with  some 
consideration  of  what  I  may  term  the  pre-natal  influences  of 
the  nation,  to  wit,  the  relations  which  existed  among  the  Euro 
pean  powers  which  preceded  this  Republic  in  possession  of  the 
land,  and  which  in  an  important  measure  were  left  as  a  legacy 
of  good  or  evil  to  the  United  States;  and  I  shall  hope  to  com 
plete  it  as  a  continuous  and  coherent  narrative  down  to  our 
own  day.  It  will  be  a  history  for  the  reading  and  informa 
tion  of  the  average  lay  citizen.  Therefore  it  will  not  be  a  tech 
nical  treatise  on  diplomacy  or  international  law,  such  as  would 
appeal  chiefly  to  the  student,  jurist  or  statesman.  Neither  will 
there  be  any  effort — which  it  might  be  vain  for  me  to  make — 
to  invest  the  narrative  with  such  romantic  charm  or  rhetorical 
art  as  would  commend  it  to  the  dilettante  or  to  the  seeker  after 
entertainment  but  would  at  the  same  time  probably  impair  its 
value  as  a  work  of  serious  information.  Nor  yet  shall  I  seek 
as  a  special  pleader  to  depict  our  country  as  always  wise  and 
just  in  its  dealings  with  others,  or  others  as  necessarily  in 
the  wrong  in  their  controversies  with  America;  but  I  shall  sin 
cerely  strive  to  treat  all  with  impartiality.  In  brief,  I  shall 
aim  to  make  this  a  popular  history  in  a  worthy  sense  of  that 
too  often  abused  term,  intended  for  popular  perusal  and  ac 
curate  information  upon  topics  which  are  among  at  once  the  most 
important  and  the  most  neglected  or  most  misunderstood  in  all 
our  national  annals. 

The  observations  of  a  lifetime  largely  given  to  the  study  of 
these  things  have  persuaded  me  that  the  foreign  relations  of 
this  country  are  the  least  generally  known  part  of  its  history. 
Our  wars,  our  territorial  growth,  our  material  progress,  our 
development  as  a  people,  our  social  and  economic  problems, 
have  been  the  themes  of  innumerable  writers  and  are  reason- 


PREFACE 

ably  assumed  to  be  familiar  to  all  who  are  entitled  to  be  re 
garded  as  well  informed.  But  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  our  international  relationships,  and  of  the  great  principles 
of  our  external  policies  of  state,  and  indeed  even  of  many  of 
the  conspicuous  incidents  and  processes  which  have  marked  and 
directed  that  development,  there  is  a  lamentable  lack  of  infor 
mation.  There  seems  to  have  prevailed  too  widely  the  spirit 
of  a  Senator  of  the  United  States  who,  a  generation  ago,  while 
discussing  a  grave  matter  in  which  the  international  good  repute 
of  the  United  States  was  involved,  scornfully  demanded  "What 
do  we  care  for  'Abroad'?" 

The  result  is  that  we  are  of  all  important  nations  probably 
the  most  self -centered  and  circumscribed.  Our  citizens  have 
been  gathered  from  all  the  world,  but  very  few  of  them  be 
long  to  all  the  world.  We  are  the  most  cosmopolitan  in  ma 
terial  substance,  but  the  least  cosmopolitan  in  sympathy  and  in 
genius.  The  British  nation,  from  which  we  are  chiefly  sprung, 
is  often  spoken  of  as  " insular";  but  its  insularity  is  vastly 
and  generously  comprehensive  in  contrast  to  the  bigoted  pa 
rochial  egotism  of  its  gigantic  offspring.  From  this  excess  of 
adulatory  introspection,  this  sometimes  smug  and  sometimes 
hifalutin  self-complacency,  and  this  lack  of  appreciative  per 
spective  and  proportion  in  viewing  other  nations  and  their  af 
fairs,  have  arisen  many  of  our  domestic  and  most  of  our  ex 
ternal  ills. 

It  would  be  a  grateful  and  beneficent  achievement  to  inspire 
the  American  people  with  a  more  adequate  and  accurate  con 
ception  of  their  real  place  in  the  world  and  of  their  true  rela 
tionship  with  other  nations.  The  result  should  be  to  ameliorate 
international  sentiments;  to  moderate  both  excessive  attach 
ments  and  excessive  animosities  into  a  spirit  of  benevolent  im 
partiality;  to  unify  the  sympathies,  the  policies  and  the  action 
of  all  domestic  parties  toward  the  external  world ;  and  to  invest 
our  popular  attitude  toward  other  peoples  and  their  governments 
with  a  dignity  and  a  benignity  worthy  of  a  nation  that  is  well 
proportioned  and  judicious  in  all  its  greatness.  If  I  shall  suc 
ceed  in  doing  this  to  a  perceptible  extent,  the  purpose  of  my 
labors  in  this  book  will  be  fulfilled. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 

CHAPTER  I.     COLONIAL  INFLUENCES 

PAGE 

Types  of  International  Relationship — Prenatal  Influences — America  the 
Offspring  of  England — The  Colonies  Founded  in  European  Rivalries — 
British,  Spanish,  Swedish,  Dutch,  and  French — American  Interests  Sacri 
ficed  by  the  Stuarts  as  Pawns  in  the  European  Game — Colonial  Policy  of 
the  Commonwealth — Betrayal  by  Charles  II — France  Striking  at  England 
in  America — The  British  Genius  for  Colonization — Queen  Anne's  War 
Anticipated  in  America — The  Peace  of  Utrecht — American  Aid  to  Eng 
land — Fatuous  Policy  «f  Halifax — The  Rise  and  Significance  of  Town 
Meetings — The  Revolt  against  Class  Privilege — The  Tragedy  of  Acadia — 
The  Beginning  of  American  Expansion  in  the  Ohio  Valley — The  French  and 
Indian  War — Purblind  British  Policy — Frederick  the  Great — The  Treaty 
of  Paris — American  Devotion  to  the  Mother  Country  111  Repaid  ...  3 

CHAPTER  II.     INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY 

Rise  of  the  American  Spirit — Not  Independence  but  Equal  Rights  with 
Englishmen  in  England  Sought — The  Royal  Prerogative's  Last  Stand — 
British  Democracy  in  America — Some  Extravagant  Vagaries — Taxation 
Without  Representation — Formation  of  a  League  of  the  Colonies — Regarded 
in  England  as  Treason — The  Stamp  Act — Imperial  Federation  Proposed  by 
Otis  and  Franklin — Samuel  Adams  the  Pioneer  of  Separation — Repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act — Its  Vicious  Principle  Reaffirmed — Townshend's  Legacy 
of  Mischief  to  North — Oppression  of  Colonial  Commerce — The  Massachu 
setts  "Circular  Letter" — The  Royal  Prerogative  Denied — Drifting  Toward 
Separation — The  Committee  of  Correspondence — Independence  Proposed — 
French  Incitements  and  Encouragement — American  Expectations  of  For 
eign  Aid 25 

CHAPTER  III.     INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED 

The  First  Continental  Congress — "Independence"  Still  a  Forbidden  Word 
— Massachusetts  and  Virginia  the  Leaders — Jay's  Address  to  the  People 
of  Great  Britain — The  Attitude  of  Parliament — Hearings  and  Petitions  of 
English  Cities  Refused — Looking  for  Civil  War  but  not  Separation — The 
Second  Continental  Congress — Appeals  to  England — Address  to  Ireland — 
Fatal  Policy  of  the  British  Government — Mercenary  Troops  Sought  in  Rus 
sia — Catherine  the  Great  and  George  III — Russian  Sympathy  Given  but  no 
Troops — Holland's  Refusal  to  Give  Aid  Against  America — An  Army  Se 
cured  at  last  in  Germany — Alien  Forces  Needed  because  of  British  Un 
willingness  to  Serve  Against  America — National  Origin  of  the  Americans 
and  Their  Leaders — First  Proposals  for  Ambassadors  and  Alliances — Mov- 


viii  CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 

PAGE 

ing  for  Independence — The  Declaration — A  Significant  Amendment — The 
Attitude  and  Conduct  of  France — No  Love  for  America,  but  More  Enmity 
for  England — Vergennes  as  an  International  lago — The  Other  European 
Powers — Not  One  Friend  for  the  New  Republic 45 

CHAPTEB  IV.    THE  BEVOLUTION 

Effect  of  the  Declaration — British  Sympathizers  with  America— Howe's 
Mission  of  Conciliation — Deane  and  Lee  in  France — Caron  de  Beaumar- 
chais  and  His  Aid  to  America — "Hortalez  &  Co." — Franklin's  Mission — 
Unsympathetic  Attitude  of  Louis  XVI — Duplicity  of  Vergennes — The 
French  Compact  with  Spain — French  Designs  Upon  Canada — The  Treaty 
with  France — Hostility  of  Spain — The  Treaty  of  Aranjurez — Gerard,  the 
First  French  Minister — His  Pernicious  Counsel — Dilatory  Policy  of  France 
— Lafayette's  True  Friendship — The  Triumph  at  Yorktown — Indifference 
of  Frederick  the  Great  Toward  America — Russia's  Sympathy  with  Eng 
land  and  Refusal  to  Recognize  the  United  States  or  Its  Envoys — Dana's 
Fruitless  Mission — Russian  Insults  to  Franklin  in  Paris — The  Armed 
Neutrality  Hostile  Rather  Than  Friendly  to  America — Holland  Alone  Sin 
cerely  Sympathetic 71 

CHAPTEB  V.     FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING 

First  Plans  for  Peace — French  Assent  Needed — Discord  and  Corruption  in 
Congress — Disputes  over  the  Fisheries  and  the  Mississippi — French  In 
trigues — The  "Pro-Gallican"  Party — A  French  Protectorate  Proposed  by 
Gerard — Jay's  Mission  to  Spain — Self-Stultification  of  Congress — Adams's 
Mission  to  Paris — Received  by  Vergennes  with  Insults  and  Hostile  In 
trigues — Departure  for  The  Hague — The  Treaty  with  the  Netherlands — 
Fall  of  the  North  Ministry — Anglo-American  Negotiations  Begun — Ver 
gennes  as  a  Mischief-Maker — France  Bound  to  Spain  More  than  to  America 
— The  United  States  to  be  Sacrificed  to  Franco-Spanish  Interests — Oswald's 
Commission — Jay's  Masterly  Diplomacy — Congressional  Instructions  De 
fied — Anger  and  Fear  of  Vergennes  at  the  Treaty  of  Peace — The  Final 
Treaty — Stipulation  as  to  the  Yazoo  Lands — The  Fisheries  and  the  Missis 
sippi — All  Other  Powers  Excluded  from  the  Treaty  Making — Austrian  and 
Russian  Attitudes — Franklin's  Treaty  with  Prussia — "Free  Ships,  Free 
Goods" — Advent  of  America  Among  the  Nations 105 

CHAPTER  VI.     CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION 

Washington's  Counsel  for  National  Union  and  a  Strong  Federal  Govern 
ment — Ignored  Under  the  Confederation — Embarrassment  in  Foreign  Af 
fairs — Separation  of  State  and  Church  Foreshadowed — Overtures  from 
Hamburg — Negotiations  with  Spain — Jay  and  Gardoqui — Sedition  in  the 
West — Adams's  Ill-Fated  Mission  to  England — Disastrous  Weakness  of  the 
Confederation  the  Source  of  Many  Woes — Jay's  Forecast  of  True  Constitu 
tional  Principles — "The  Federalist"  on  Foreign  Relations — The  Treaty- 
Making  Power  under  the  Constitution — Authority  of  the  Federal  Judiciary 
— Organization  of  the  Department  of  State — Foreign  Affairs  at  the  Adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution — Washington's  Saving  Common  Sense — Jefferson 
as  Secretary  of  State — Official  and  Popular  Attitude  of  European  Coun 
tries  in  1789 — Influence  of  Jay  and  Hamilton — The  President  Made  the 
Sole  Source  of  Diplomatic  Authority — Sending  Ministers  Abroad  and  Re 
ceiving  Foreign  Envoys — Establishment  of  the  Fundamental  Principles  of 
Diplomatic  Intercourse .  134 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I  ix 

CHAPTER  VII.     ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY 

PAGE 

America's  First  Diplomatic  Conflict  with  France — Washington's  Rebuke 
to  Moustier — First  Senatorial  Ratification  of  a  Treaty — Effect  of  Hamil 
ton's  Financial  and  Industrial  Work  upon  Foreign  Relations — Gouverneur 
Morris  in  France — Recognition  of  New  Governments — Washington  on  Amer 
ica's  Self-Sufficiency — An  Epochal  Proclamation  of  Neutrality — The  Rise 
of  Faction — Genet's  Scandalous  Conduct — Jay  on  the  Rights  and  Duties 
of  Independent  America — Jefferson's  Relations  with  Genet — The  Recall 
of  Genet;  and  of  Morris — Resignation  of  Jefferson — British  Disregard  of 
American  Neutrality — Paralysis  of  American  Commerce — Need  of  a  Navy 
Sorely  Felt — An  Embargo  Proposed— Jay's  Treaty  with  Great  Britain — 
Faction  and  Foreign  Intrigue — Randolph's  Resignation — Relation  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  to  Treaty-Making — Troubles  with  Spain — Pinck- 
ney  and  Godoy — Forecasting  the  Monroe  Doctrine 165 

CHAPTER  VIII.     THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY 

Results  of  the  First  Administration — Independence,  Neutrality,  "Amer 
icanism,"  and  the  Freedom- .of  the  Seas — Foreign  Policy  Expounded  in 
Washington's  Farewell  Address — Adams's  Effort  to  Continue  Washing 
ton's  Policy — The  Menace  of  War  with  France — Dissensions  in  the  Fed 
eralist  Party — Preparations  for  War — Dealing  with  Talleyrand — "Millions 
for  Defense;  not  One  Cent  for  Tribute!" — Talleyrand's  Attempt  to  Cor 
rupt  Gerry — The  "X.  Y.  Z."  Correspondence — Building  a  Navy — Waging 
an  Undeclared  War — Dr.  Logan's  Mission  of  Meddling — Adams's  Resolute 
Course — A  Diplomatic  Triumph  over  France — Dealing  with  Bonaparte — 
The  War  Averted — The  Alien  Laws — Naturalization — An  Enlightened 
Treaty  with  Prussia — Overtures  from  Russia — America  Still  a  Novice 
Among  the  Powers 200 

CHAPTER  IX.     COMPLETE  NATIONALITY 

Jefferson's  Reversals  of  Policy — The  War  with  Tripoli — The  Dispute  with 
Spain  over  Navigation  of  the  Mississippi — Conflicting  Claims  in  West  Flor 
ida — Two  Theories  Concerning  River  Navigation — Hamilton's  Continental 
Policy — Impatience  and  Sedition  in  the  West — French  Aspirations  in  Amer 
ica — The  Treaty  of  San  Ildefonso — Jefferson's  Letter  to  Livingston — 
From  Pro-Gallican  to  Pro-Anglican — Revocation  of  American  Rights  at 
New  Orleans — Jefferson's  Masterly  Course — Preparations  for  War — Mis 
sion  of  Monroe  and  Livingston — Negotiations  with  Talleyrand  and  Marbois 
— The  Louisiana  Purchase — Bonaparte's  Exultation — Spanish  Protests 
Ignored — Effects  of  the  Transaction — Disputes  over  West  Florida  and 
Texas — Proposals  of  Purchase  or  Seizure — Duplicity  of  Talleyrand — Dip 
lomatic  Relations  with  Spain  Suspended 225 

CHAPTER  X.     THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN 

Neutrality  Disregarded  by  France  and  Great  Britain — Attacks  Upon 
American  Commerce — The  Non-Importation  Act — Impressment  of  Seamen 
— The  Leopard-Chesapeake  Affair — Blockade  and  Embargo — Relations  with 
Russia — Social  Amenities  at  Washington — Madison's  Accession  to  the 
Presidency — Maladroit  and  Misleading  Diplomacy — The  Orders  in  Council 
and  the  Berlin  and  Milan  Decrees — Madison  Tricked  by  Bonaparte — John 
Quincy  Adams  in  Russia — American  Influences  Set  Russia  against  France — 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 

PAGE 

British  Hopes  of  Regaining  New  England — British  Meddling  in  West 
Florida,  and  with  the  Indians — The  Rise  of  Clay  and  Calhoun  in  Congress — 
Madison's  War  Message — A  War  for  the  Conquest  of  Canada — The  Hart 
ford  Convention — Russian  Offers  of  Mediation — Direct  Negotiations  with 
Great  Britain — Russian  Duplicity — The  Conferences  at  Ghent — A  Treaty 
Which  Made  Peace  but  Left  All  Else  Unsettled — Further  Negotiations — 
A  Clash  with  Russia — An  American  Victory — A  Warning  of  Russian  De 
signs  257 


f  CHAPTER  XI.     OPENING  A  NEW  ERA 


John  Quincy  Adams  at  the  State  Department — Insisting  Upon  Fishery 
Rights — The  Northern  Boundary — A  Modus  Vivendi  in  Oregon — Russian 
Arbitration  of  Slave  Claims — Seizure  of  West  Florida — Strenuous  Policy 
Toward  East  Florida — Jackson's  Invasion  of  Florida — Arbuthnot  and  Am- 
brister — Adams's  Vigorous  Diplomacy — "The  Immutable  Principle  of  Self- 
Defense" — De  Onis's  Treaty-Making — General  Vives — Acquisition  of  Flor 
ida — Rise  of  the  Cuban  Question — Adams's  Enunciation  of  American  Policy 
— Russia's  Territorial  Pretensions  on  the  Pacific  Coast — Attempt  to  Monop 
olize  the  Pacific  Ocean — Adams's  Warning  to  Tuyll — America's  Great 
Triumph  in  the  Alaska  Treaty — Interest  in  the  South  American  Revolu 
tions — Requests  for  Recognition  of  the  South  American  States — Proposals 
for  Concerted  Recognition — Clay's  Radical  Exhortations — Final  Recogni 
tion  of  the  South  American  Republics  and  Establishment  of  Diplomatic 
Relations .  .  300 


^CHAPTER  XII.     THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE 


Origin  and  Development  of  the  Doctrine — Contributions  by  Hamilton, 
Jefferson,  Washington,  and  John  Quincy  Adams — The  Holy  Alliance  and 
Its  Designs  Upon  America — A  Russo-Spanish  Expedition  of  Conquest 
Threatened — Great  Britain's  Dissent  from  the  Schemes  of  the  Alliance — 
Canning's  Suggestions  to  Rush — Rush's  Reply  and  Report  to  Adams — 
Great  Britain's  Warning  to  France — Opinions  and  Advice  of  Jefferson  and 
Madison  Secured  by  Monroe — Calhoun 's  Fear  of  the  Alliance — Adams's 
Intrepid  Attitude — Monroe's  Message  Enunciating  the  Doctrine — Webster's 
Account  of  Its  Reception — Effect  in  South  America  and  in  Europe — British 
Misapprehension  of  a  Part  of  It — Canning's  Boast  of  Authorship — The  Two 
Parts  of  the  Doctrine  and  Their  Purport — An  Expression  of  American  Pol 
icy  for  the  Safeguarding  of  American  Welfare — Its  Applications  and  Its 
Limitations — American  Hegemony — Cleavage  Between  North  and  South 
America  over  the  Slavery  Question .  329 


CHAPTER  XIII.    EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS 

World  Power  Status  Established  and  Recognized — Recognition  of  New 
States — Offers  of  Mediation  between  Spain  and  South  America — The  Pan 
ama  Congress — Unfortunate  Pro-Slavery  Attitude  of  the  Senate — Estrange 
ment  of  Southern  Neighbors — Rival  Designs  in  Cuba — Commercial  Nego 
tiations  with  Great  Britain — The  Maine-New  Brunswick  Boundary — An 
Arbitral  Award  Rejected— The  Aroostook  War— The  Webster-Ashburton 
Treaty — British  Refusal  to  Surrender  Fugitive  Slaves — Discreditable  Di- 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I  xi 

PAGE 

plomacy  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren — Carrying  Domestic  Faction  into 
Foreign  Relations — Beneficent  Treaty  with  Great  Britain — Both  Flattery 
and  Threatenings  to  France — Preparations  for  War — British  Mediation 
Successful — Governmental  Respect  for  Treaties — French  Arbitration  be 
tween  America  and  Portugal 354 

CHAPTER  XIV.    AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION 

The  Louisiana  Boundary  Dispute — Adams's  Insistence  Upon  Our  Title 
to  Texas — Defeated  by  a  Factional  Conspiracy — Texas  Conceded  to  Mex 
ico — Proposals  for  Purchase  Declined — Colonization  for  Purposes  of  An 
nexation — Independence  of  Texas  Proclaimed — Texan-Mexican  War — Jack 
son's  Evasive  Policy — Texas  Finally  Recognized — Trouble  at  Niagara — 
Premature  Aggression  in  California — European  Protection  for  Texas — 
Schemes  for  Annexation  of  Texas — The  Slavery  Question  Dominant 
— Annexation  Treaty  Defeated — California  Involved  in  the  Dispute — 
Annexation  by  Joint  Resolution — Slidell's  Mission  to  Mexico — The  Mex 
ican  War — Trist's  Negotiations  for  Peace — The  Treaty  of  Guadalupe- 
Hidalgo — Enormous  Territorial  Acquisitions- — The  Gadsden  Purchase  .  .377 


CHAPTER  XV.    OREGON 

Early  Explorations  of  the  Pacific  Coast — Spanish  and  Russian  Titles — 
Discovery  of  the  Columbia  River — Other  Bases  of  American  Claims — Rival 
Claims  of  Great  Britain — Astoria — The  Modus  Vivendi — American  Sug-  ;,, 
gestions  to  Great  Britain  and  Russia — Adams  and  Stratford  Canning — Did 
England  Claim  the  Moon? — Russia  Forced  Back  to  "Fifty-four  Forty" — 
The  Continuous  Coast  Strip — Gallatin's  Negotiations — The  Rule  of  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company — Indian  Envoys  Open  American  Eyes — The  Advent 
of  the  Missionaries — Overland  Colonization  from  the  United  States — 
"Fifty-four  Forty,  or  Fight!"— Folk's  Monumental  Repudiation  of  Policy 
— Buchanan-Pakenham  Negotiations — Treaty-Making  Processes  Reversed — 
The  San  Juan  Controversy — Submission  to  Arbitration — The  American  Case 
Triumphant — Final  Settlement  in  Oregon 403 


CHAPTER  XVI.    ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS 

is 

Central  American  Canal  Schemes — Rivalry  Between  Panama  and  Nicaragua 
— Early  American  Surveys — The  Isthmian  Route  to  California  and  Oregon — 
The  Treaty  of  1848  with  New  Granada — British- American  Rivalries  in 
Nicaragua — The  Mosquito  Coast — Diplomacy  of  Hise  and  Squier — The 
Fight  for  Tigre  Island — Abbott  Lawrence's  Investigation  of  British  Claims 
— The  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty — Foreign  Interests  Sacrificed  to  the  Exigen 
cies  of  Domestic  Partizanship — Provisions  of  the  Treaty — Disagreement 
as  to  Their  Meaning — Clayton  Tricked  and  the  Senate  Careless — Enforce 
ment  of  the  British  Interpretation — Nicaragua  Betrayed — British  Aggres 
sions  in  the  Bay  Islands — American  Destruction  of  Greytown — British 
Refusal  to  Recognize  the  Monroe  Doctrine — Talk  of  Abrogating  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  Treaty — Walker's  Land  Piracy  in  Nicaragua — Futile  Negotiations 
with  Great  Britain — Ousley's  Mission — The  United  States  and  Nicaragua 
Both  Entrapped  by  British  Diplomacy  and  All  Canal  Projects  Indefinitely 
Postponed 430 


xii  CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 

CHAPTER  XVII.    EARLY  EASTERN  EELATIONS 

PAGE 

The  First  American  Visit  to  China — Jay's  Recommendation  of  Consular 
Relations — The  Mission  of  Edmund  Roberts — American  Titles  in  Anam — 
The  Treaty  with  Siam;  and  with  Muscat — America  Drawn  into  Anglo- 
Chinese  Controversies — The  Opium  War — Commodore  Kearny  and  the 
Open  Door  in  China — Caleb  Gushing' s  Negotiations — Chinese  Evasions — A 
Treaty  Made — An  American  Triumph — The  Principle  of  Extra-Territorial 
Jurisdiction — Chinese  Contempt  for  Foreigners — Demands  for  Treaty  Re 
vision — American  Interest  in  the  Tai-Ping  Rebellion — American  Ships 
Destroy  Forts  at  Canton — The  Advance  Upon  Peking — "Blood  Is  Thicker 
than  Water!" — An  American  Envoy  at  Peking — Refusal  to  Kneel  Before 
the  Emperor — Making  the  Best  of  a  Difficult  Situation 456 

CHAPTER  XVIII.    THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN 

The  American  Flag  in  the  Dutch  Service — First  Effort  to  Establish  Inter 
course  with  a  Hermit  Nation — Taking  Home  Japanese  Castaways — Hu 
manity  111  Requited — A  Futile  Mission — American  Sailors  111  Treated — 
Fillmore  and  Webster  Plan  the  "Opening" — Elaborate  Preparations  for 
Perry's  Expedition — Sensation  Produced  by  the  Arrival  of  the  "Black 
Ships" — Perry's  Masterful  Attitude — Reception  of  the  President's  Letter 
by  the  Emperor's  Representatives — Perry's  Return  for  an  Answer — His 
Imposing  Retinue — Making  the  Treaty — Japanese  Appreciation  of  Perry's 
Services — Townsend  Harris,  the  Schoolmaster  of  Japan — Another  Treaty 
Made — The  First  Japanese  Mission  to  Amercia — Insistence  Upon  American 
Rights — The  Cho-Shiu  Rebellion — Religious  Freedom  Established  in  Japan 
through  the  American  Initiative 479 

CHAPTER  XIX.    EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII 

A  Tragic  First  Visit  to  the  Islands — Beginnings  of  Commercial  Inter 
course — Russian  Designs  Thwarted — Hawaiian  Refugees  in  New  England 
— The  Advent  of  the  Missionaries — Rapid  Progress  of  Civilization — An 
Unratified  Treaty — A  Naval  Outrage — American  and  British  Rivalry — 
French  Aggressions  and  Intrigues — Webster's  Wise  Policy — Tyler's 
Recommendation  of  a  Practical  Protectorate — Appeal  of  the  Islands  for 
Aid  Against  British  Aggressions — British  Disavowal  and  Redress — An 
American  Envoy  Sent  to  the  Islands — More  French  Aggressions — American- 
Hawaiian  Treaty — Seeking  American  Protection — Webster's  Effective 
Warning  to  France — Overtures  for  Annexation — Statehood  the  Obstacle — 
Reciprocity  Deferred  .  497 

CHAPTER  XX.    SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION 

European  Immigration  to  America — Its  Causes,  Sources,  and  Effects — The 
"Know- Nothing"  Party — American  Interests  in  the  Hungarian  Repub 
lic — Webster's  Letter  to  Huelsemann — Kossuth's  Visit  to  the  United 
States — The  Koszta  Incident — Protection  of  Naturalized  Citizens — The 
British  Minister  Dismissed  for  Connivance  at  Enlistments  for  the  British 
Army — Marcy's  Refusal  to  Enter  the  Declaration  of  Paris — "Diplomatic 
Costume"  Follies — Cuban  Filibustering — Anti-Spanish  Outrages  in  New 
Orleans — Tripartite  Guarantee  over  Cuba  Refused — Pro-Slavery  Efforts  to 
Acquire  Cuba — Soule's  Mission  to  Spain — The  Black  Warrior  Episode — 
The  Ostend  Manifesto — The  North  Atlantic  Fisheries — Reciprocity  with 
Canada — Suppressing  the  Slave  Trade — Great  Britain  Accepts  American 
Views  of  the  Right  of  Visit  and  Search — Friction  with  Mexico — Numerous 
Treaties  with  Various  Lands 525 


PORTRAITS  IN  VOLUME  I 
JOHN  JAY Frontispiece 

From   an   Engraving  by  J.   C.   Buttre,    in   J.   S.   Jenkins's    "Lives   of   the 
Governors  of  New  York,"   1851. 

FACING 
PAGE 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 168 

From  the  Painting  by  John  Trumbull,  in  the  Governor's  Room,  City  Hall, 
New  York. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 232 

.  From  the   Painting  by   Charles  Wesley   Jarvis,   in  the  Governor's  Room, 
City  Hall,  New  York. 

ALBERT  GALLATIN 296 

From   the  Painting  by  Daniel  Huntington,   in  the  Council  Room  of   New 
York  University. 

JAMES  MONROE 328 

From  the  Painting  by  John  Vanderlyn,  in  the  Governor's  Room,  City  Hall, 
New  York. 

JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS 360 

From   a   Painting   by   A.   B.   Durand,    Engraved   by   H.   Wright    Smith   for 
Josiah    Quincy's    "Memoir   of    the   Life   of    John    Quincy   Adams,"    1858. 

DANIEL  WEBSTER 472 

From  a  Daguerreotype. 

WILLIAM  L.  MARCY 536 

From   an   Engraving  by   J.   C.   Buttre,    in   J.   S.   Jenkins's    "Lives   of  the 
Governors  of  New  York,"  1851. 


AMERICA'S 
FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

VOLUME  I. 


AMERICA'S 
FOREIGN  RELATIONS 


I 

COLONIAL  INFLUENCES 

THE  foreign  relations  of  a  country  are  manifold.  There  are, 
in  the  primitive  state,  the  personal  relations  of  the  chief  of 
the  tribe,  or  of  the  monarch,  which  for  a  time  dominate  the  whole 
attitude  of  one  people  toward  another.  In  the  theoretical  fra 
ternity  of  thrones,  all  monarchs  are  to  all  others  "dear  cousins" 
or  "beloved  brothers."  In  fact,  they  are  sometimes  friends  and 
sometimes  mortal  foes.  In  the  days  of  absolutism  these  personal, 
monarchical  relations  often  determined  the  whole  foreign  policy 
of  a  nation.  Wars  and  peace,  alliances  and  treaties,  were  made 
not  according  to  the  will  of  the  people  or  in  conformity  with 
their  interests,  but  at  the  will,  the  pleasure,  or  the  caprice  of  the 
sovereign.  With  such  relations  we  have  happily  little  to  do  in 
these  days.  America  felt  them  sharply  and  bitterly  in  early 
colonial  times,  but  has  scarcely  known  even  their  indirect  in 
fluence  for  the  last  hundred  years.  Even  in  Europe,  in  exclu 
sively  European  affairs,  such  influences  are  waning.  They  still 
exist  to  a  degree.  There  is  some  usefulness  in  the  visits  and 
counter-visits  of  monarchs.  But  such  usefulness  is  generally 
supplementary  to  the  initiative  and  will  of  the  people  expressed 
through  parliamentary  ministers;  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
a  royal  interview  between  even  the  greatest  sovereigns  is  re 
garded  as  of  little  political  or  diplomatic  significance  unless  some 
of  their  ministers  are  present  at  it. 

A  second  type  of  international  relationships  is  that  created  by 
individuals  who  are  not  sovereigns,  and  perhaps  not  occupants 
of  any  official  places,  but  who  possess,  or  are  supposed  to  possess, 
some  representative  character  and  who  perform  some  noteworthy 

3 


4  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

public  service.  Thus  they  succeed  in  impressing  strongly  the 
public,  and,  perhaps  also,  the  governmental  mind,  and  in  mate 
rially  affecting  the  relationship  between  the  two  countries. 
Sometimes  their  actions  are  generous  and  disinterested,  and 
sometimes  they  are  actuated  by  self-seeking.  Sometimes  the  re 
sults  are  beneficent,  and  sometimes  they  are  productive  of  all  ill 
feelings  between  the  nations.  We  cannot  doubt  that  strong  in 
ternational  sentiments,  affecting  practical  relationships,  were  cre 
ated  by  the  services  of  Lafayette  to  America  in  the  Revolution ; 
by  those  of  Byron  to  Greece;  by  the  residence  of  Garibaldi  in 
the  United  States  just  before  his  great  achievement ;  by  the  hos 
pitality  of  the  United  States  to  the  exiled  Kossuth ;  and  by  other 
like  incidents  of  an  unofficial  and  personal  character. 

This  form  of  international  relationship  naturally  and  directly 
leads  into  that  wider  and  more  potent  one  based  upon  general 
popular  sentiment.  We  are  told  that  the  Creator  made  of  one 
blood  all  races  of  men  that  dwell  upon  the  earth.  Yet  there  is 
no  question  that  among  different  races,  or  different  branches  of 
the  one  common  race,  widely  varying  relations  exist,  from  warm 
est  friendship  and  sympathy  to  implacable  animosity,  based  upon 
causes  which,  if  not  natural,  are  so  ancient  and  remote  as  to 
elude  analysis.  Thus  it  was  in  the  earliest  recorded  times. 
There  was  hatred  between  Egyptian  and  Israelite.  The  Jews 
had  no  dealings  with  the  Samaritans.  The  Greeks  regarded  all 
who  did  not  speak  their  language  as  barbarians.  There  was  no 
peace  or  friendship  between  Iran  and  Turan.  So  it  is  at  the 
present  day,  despite  the  ameliorating  influences  of  religion  and 
civilization,  and,  perhaps  above  all,  of  commerce  and  close  com 
munication.  Such  relationships,  whether  of  amity  or  hatred, 
are  determined  by  conditions  of  race,  of  language,  of  religious 
faith,  of  immemorial  tradition,  of  pecuniary  interest,  of  national 
ambition,  of  indefinable  prejudice,  and  what  not  else.  They  are 
often,  perhaps,  unreasonable,  and  certainly  in  many  cases  are 
entirely  inexplicable. 

There  are,  finally,  what  we  may  call  official  or  constitutional 
relationships,  created  by  responsible  governments  representative 
of  the  people  and  based  upon  the  popular  will  and  interest. 
These  are,  or  are  supposed  to  be,  logical  and  reasonable,  affected 
neither  by  sentiment  nor  by  caprice.  They  are  expressed  in 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  5 

treaties  and  other  negotiations,  whether  friendly  or  hostile,  and 
are  controlled  and  directed  by  the  commonly  accepted  principles 
of  international  law.  Such  relationships  form  the  basis  and  sub 
stance  of  the  major  part  of  modern  diplomacy.  Sometimes  they 
are  generous  and  self-sacrificing,  but  far  more  often  they  are  in 
a  degree  selfish,  each  nation  pursuing  toward  its  neighbors  the 
policy  which  will  best  promote  and  conserve  its  own  welfare. 
"There  can  be,"  said  Washington  in  his  Farewell  Address,  "no 
greater  error  than  to  expect  or  calculate  upon  real  favors  from 
nation  to  nation." 

There  are  also  in  international  relationships,  and  indeed  in 
nearly  all  the  affairs  of  States,  what  are  called  prenatal  in 
fluences,  just  as  there  are  in  the  characters  and  careers  of  in 
dividual  men.  No  American  or  European  State  now  existing 
came  into  existence  as  a  new  creation.  It  was  formed  by  evo 
lution,  or  revolution,  from  some  preexisting  State  or  States,  and 
from  its  civil  ancestors  it  inherited  certain  conditions,  character 
istics,  traditions,  predilections,  animosities,  and  what  not,  which 
went  far  toward  determining  its  early  relationships  with  its 
neighbors,  and  which  in  some  cases  have  for  many  centuries  per 
ceptibly  colored  and  influenced  international  sentiments  and  at 
titudes. 

This  latter  fact  is  notably  apparent  in  the  case  of  the  subject 
now  under  consideration.  The  United  States  of  America  was  a 
political,  social,  religious,  intellectual,  and  racial  offspring  of 
Great  Britain,  and  especially  of  England.  That  is  the  funda 
mental  fact  in  all  its  history,  whether  internal  or  external.  That 
was  the  circumstance  which  determined  the  original  character 
of  these  States,  which  established  their  earliest  relations  with 
other  countries,  and  which  directed  them  into  the  course  which 
they  have  since  pursued  and  are  now  pursuing  as  a  united  na 
tion.  To-day  this  nation  is  perhaps  the  most  composite  under 
the  sun.  Almost  every  tribe  and  people  in  the  world  has  con 
tributed  to  its  population ;  some  of  them  in  recent  years  so  largely 
as  to  exert  a  perceptible  influence  upon  the  national  character 
and  popular  institutions.  Nevertheless,  the  foundation  was 
English,  and  the  framework  remains  English.  What  the  Thir 
teen  Colonies  were  in  1776,  they  were  because  of  their  English 
origin  and  their  century  and  a  half  of  English  connection  and 


6  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

control.  Vast  as  has  been  the  material  growth  of  the  United 
States,  and  comparably  great  its  constitutional  development,  the 
original  English  leaven  has  continued  to  this  day  to  leaven  the 
whole  lump,  and  the  original  English  spirit  to  inspire  the  whole 
mind  and  soul. 

These  English  colonies,  moreover,  had  their  foundation  and 
development  in  European  intrigues,  rivalries,  and  wars.  That 
is  a  significant  fact,  which  has  largely  colored  the  history  of 
foreign  relations.  At  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  America 
there  was  more  friendship  than  enmity  between  England  and 
Spain.  Both  were  Catholic  powers,  and  in  no  quarter  had  they 
come  into  serious  conflict.  Between  the  British  Isles  and  the 
Iberian  Peninsula  there  were  strong  ties.  Prince  Henry  of  Por 
tugal,  the  great  promoter  of  adventure  and  discovery  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  was  a  grandson  of  John  of  Gaunt  and  thus  a 
member  of  the  English  royal  house  of  Lancaster.  It  was,  too, 
by  only  the  narrowest  of  chances  that  England  failed  to  become, 
instead  of  Spain,  the  first  proprietor  of  the  Western  World. 
When  the  Columbus  brothers  were  at  their  wits'  end  to  secure 
patronage  for  their  enterprise  of  seeking  Japan,  China,  and  the 
Indies  by  the  western  route,  Bartholomew  turned  to  the  English 
court.  There  the  far-seeing  and  statesmanlike  Henry  VII  re 
ceived  him  cordially,  became  interested  in  his  plans,  and  was 
about  to  equip  his  expedition  and  send  him  forth  under  the 
English  flag.  But  at  the  last  moment  word  came  that  his  brother 
Christopher  had  already  pledged  himself  to  the  services  of  Spain. 
But  for  that,  Columbus  would  have  found  a  world  for  England 
and  not  for  Leon  and  Castile. 

That  was  in  1488.  Many  things  happened  between  then  and 
the  latter  part  of  the  next  century.  The  religious  revolution 
in  England  aroused,  instead  of  friendship,  the  bitterest  of  an 
tagonism  between  that  country  and  Spain.  Moreover,  Spain's 
fatuous  expulsion  of  the  Jews  and  Moors  deprived  the  Iberian 
Peninsula  of  its  best  elements  and  left  a  nation  of  soldiers  and 
priests,  hopelessly  declining.  So  in  the  strenuous  days  of  Eliza 
beth  it  was  the  English  policy  to  antagonize  Spain,  and  to  strike 
at  her,  not  only  by  burning  her  fleet  in  Cadiz  Harbor  and  ravag 
ing  the  Spanish  Main,  but  also  by  seizing  upon  parts  of  the 
Continent  which  Spain  claimed  and  which  had  been  accorded  to 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  7 

her  by  a  papal  bull,  and  planting  thereon  sturdy  English  colo 
nies.  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  most  important  English  col 
onies  in  this  country  were  founded  for  conscience's  sake,  in 
quest  of  ' '  freedom  to  worship  God. ' '  But  those  were  of  a  little 
later  date.  The  pioneer  English  colony  on  the  North  American 
continent,  Virginia,  had  no  such  purpose.  Its  aim  was  to  spoil 
the  Spanish  king's  dominion,  and  to  carry  the  English  war 
against  Spain  into  America.  It  was  as  a  part  of  the  English 
warfare  against  Spain  that  the  first  English  colony  was  planted 
upon  these  shores. 

This  English  challenge  did  not  go  unnoticed.  Spain  was 
quick  to  perceive  it,  and  to  appreciate  its  menace.  For  not  a 
moment  did  she  mean  to  tolerate  it.  Preparations  were 
promptly  made  for  wiping  the  stain  of  English  heretic  feet 
from  the  sacred  shore  of  New  Spain.  But  the  Spaniards  pro 
ceeded  with  as  much  caution  as  valor.  Elizabeth  of  England 
had  been  gathered  to  her  fathers,  and  the  incompetent  and  cor 
rupt  James  Stuart  was  on  the  throne.  He  might  be  dealt  with 
differently  from  his  predecessor.  A  Spanish  fleet  of  thirteen 
sail  was  prepared,  for  a  descent  upon  Virginia.  That  was  in 
the  spring  of  1612.  News  of  it  came  to  England,  and  was  con 
firmed,  again  and  again.  But  the  English  government,  under 
the  malign  control  of  James,  made  no  effort  to  meet  it  or  to  de 
fend  the  colony.  Then  Spanish  spies  began  to  report  to  their 
king  upon  the  condition  of  England  and  of  the  colony.  Eng 
land  had  no  effective  navy.  The  king's  ships  lay  rotting  at 
their  wharves.  Only  a  few  merchant  ships,  even,  went  out. 
The  whole  maritime  service  of  England  was  falling  into  decay. 
Virginia  was  also  in  a  parlous  state.  It  was  receiving  no  royal 
subsidy  or  other  favor,  and  was  likely  soon  to  fall  through  its 
own  weakness.  So  there  was  really  no  need  of  action.  All 
Spain  had  to  do  was  to  sit  still,  and  she  would  win  her  point. 
Moreover,  there  was  in  every  Spanish  mind  a  strong  conviction 
that  it  was  best  to  let  a  sleeping  dog  lie,  especially  when  it  was 
a  British  mastiff  of  the  Devon  breed.  It  was  all  very  well  to 
say  that  the  English  navy  had  gone  to  ruin.  But  who  could 
tell  what  might  happen?  For  years  Spaniards  had  not  ven 
tured  to  go  boating  on  rivers  and  lakes  in  the  heart  of  Spain, 
for  fear  lest  Francis  Drake  should  suddenly  appear! 


8  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

So  diplomatic  counsels  prevailed  above  the  militant.  It  was 
decided  at  Madrid  not  to  incur  the  danger  of  having  the  Spanish 
king's  beard  singed  again,  but  to  try  peaceful  intrigues  with 
King  James.  Why  not,  since  a  Stuart  was  ever  ready  to  be 
bribed  or  in  some  way  corrupted?  The  Spanish  fleet  was  there 
fore  not  sent  to  Virginia,  but  the  Spanish  minister,  Gondamar, 
had  a  free  hand  at  London  to  play  his  tricks  and  manners  upon 
the  credulous  and  corrupt  tyrant.  His  task  was  easy.  He  soon 
persuaded  James  that  ' '  a  seditious  company  is  but  the  seminary 
to  a  seditious  Parliament,"  wherefore  if  he  did  not  presently 
want  a  lot  of  rebels  in  Westminster  Hall  defying  his  divine 
right,  he  would  better  suppress  the  Virginia  Company.  Sim 
ilarly,  in  after  years,  George  III  was  convinced  that  if  the 
Thirteen  Colonies  won  their  independence  in  the  Revolution  of 
1776,  all  the  other  colonies,  including  Ireland,  would  speedily 
be  lost  to  the  British  Crown.  " Should  America  succeed,"  he 
said,  "the  West  Indies  must  follow,  not  in  independence  but  in 
dependence  on  America.  Ireland  would  soon  follow,  and  this 
island  reduce  itself  to  a  poor  island  indeed." 

Never  did  gudgeon  swallow  a  bait  more  eagerly  than  James, 
and  forthwith  he  began  his  meddling  and  attempted  dictation 
in  the  affairs  of  the  company.  He  first  tried  to  dictate  the 
election  of  one  of  his  creatures  as  its  treasurer,  for  which  at 
tempt  he  was  compelled  to  eat  humble  pie.  But  Gondamar 
persisted.  The  lure  of  a  Spanish  princess  as  the  bride  of  the 
English  heir-apparent  was  potent  and  effective.  James  main 
tained  his  hostility  to  the  company,  by  other  and  finally  more 
effective  means  than  that  at  first  tried.  A  king  whose  kingly 
grandson  could  put  and  keep  a  Jeffreys  on  the  bench  could 
surely  himself  prostitute  the  law  courts  to  any  base  purpose. 
So  in  1642,  James,  at  Spanish  instigation,  had  a  court  annul 
the  charter  of  the  Virginia  Company,  on  the  ground  that  it  gave 
that  company  the  privilege  of  transporting  the  king's  subjects, 
at  their  will,  from  England  to  Virginia,  and  so  might  actually 
depopulate  the  realm  by  transferring  the  whole  English  peo 
ple  to  its  oversea  dominion !  Upon  a  more  preposterous  ground 
never  was  so  gross  a  moral  and  political  crime  committed. 

There  were  for  a  time  two  other  colonial  settlements  on  the 
North  Atlantic  coast  besides  the  English.  These  were  soon,  how- 


/  COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  9 

ever,  incorporated  into  the  English  domain,  and  now  form  im 
portant  parts  of  the  United  States.  It  is  to  be  observed  that 
they  were  founded  in  much  the  same  manner  and  for  precisely 
the  same  purpose  as  the  English  colony  of  Virginia.  They 
were  inspired  by  European  animosities,  and  were  founded  as 
parts  of  European  campaigns.  The  Dutch  settlement  of  New 
Netherlands,  on  the  Hudson  River,  which  was  afterward  devel 
oped  into  the  State  of  New  York,  was  made  as  a  part  of  the  heroic 
struggle  of  the  Dutch  against  their  Spanish  oppressors.  It 
was  suggested  by  William  Usselincx  and  his  colleagues  of  the 
Orange  party,  as  an  effective  means  of  striking  at  Spain,  and 
of  creating,  on  these  distant  shores,  a  diversion  in  aid  of  the 
much-tried  Netherlands.  On  account  of  its  purpose  it  was  for 
a  time  not  only  tolerated  but  even  sanctioned  and  encouraged 
by  England,  although  it  was  a  trespasser  on  territory  claimed 
by  the  latter;  because  England  and  Holland  were  then  making 
common  cause  against  Spain.  It  will  be  recalled  that  so  intimate 
were  their  relations  at  one  time  that  the  Dutchmen  earnestly 
besought  Elizabeth  of  England  to  become  their  queen  and  thus 
to  unite  the  two  countries  under  one  crown.  It  was  when  Eng 
land  and  Holland  parted  and  became  enemies,  and  England, 
under  the  Stuart  rule,  was  sold  to  be  an  appanage  and  vassal 
of  France  and  Spain,  that  the  Dutch  colony  was  finally  seized 
by  England.  That  seizure  was  performed  in  consequence  of 
conditions  existing  in  Europe,  and  as  a  part  of  a  European  cam 
paign,  and  was  effected,  we  may  add,  with  the  baseness  and 
turpitude  characteristic  of  all  the  Stuarts  and  especially  of 
Charles  II. 

The  Swedish  colony  on  the  Delaware  River,  from  which 
largely  sprang  the  States  of  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  had 
a  history  not  unlike  that  of  the  New  Netherlands.  The  estab 
lishment  of  it  was  suggested  by  the  same  man,  William  Usselincx, 
who  urged  it  upon  Gustavus  Adolphus  as  a  part  of  his  great 
Protestant  campaign  against  the  Catholic  powers  in  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  The  "Lion  of  the  North"  was  favorably  impressed 
by  the  idea  and  authorized  its  execution,  but  was  too  busy  to  pay 
much  personal  attention  to  it.  After  his  death  it  was  taken  up 
zealously  by  his  great  chancellor,  Oxenstierna,  and  the  colony 
of  New  Sweden  was  planted  at  the  head  of  Delaware  Bay.  Its 


10  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

relations  with  its  neighboring  Dutch  colony  at  the  northeast 
were  much  like  those  of  the  latter  with  the  English.  New 
Sweden  was  regarded  as  a  trespasser  on  Dutch  territory,  as  the 
New  Netherlands  were  on  English  territory.  But  as  long  as 
Holland  was  fighting  for  life  against  Spain,  she  had  need  of 
Sweden's  friendship  and  cooperation,  and  therefore  respected 
the  Swedish  colony.  But  in  1648  the  Thirty  Years'  War  came 
to  an  end  in  the  peace  of  Munster.  Holland  was  freed  from 
the  Spanish  incubus.  Then  Charles  X  of  Sweden  became  in 
volved  in  a  great  war  with  Poland.  As  Holland  had  no  further 
need  of  Swedish  friendship,  and  as  Sweden  was  fully  occupied 
elsewhere,  the  Dutchmen  of  New  Amsterdam  saw  their  oppor 
tunity,  and  improved  it.  Peter  Stuyvesant  hastened  around 
from  the  Hudson  to  the  Delaware,  and  effected  the  conquest  of 
New  Sweden  and  its  incorporation  into  his  own  bailiwick  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  very  much  as  England  a  little  later  in 
turn  conquered  and  annexed  the  Dutch  colony. 

In  these  and  other  regions  Dutchmen,  Swedes,  Germans,  and 
Frenchmen  renounced  their  old  nationality,  to  become  first  Brit 
ish  subjects  and  later  American  citizens.  In  such  manner  were 
all  the  colonies,  from  Maine  to  Georgia,  founded  and  Anglicized, 
because  of  European  complications.  Thus  were  their  early  in 
terests  inseparably,  as  it  seemed,  interwoven  with  the  tangled 
threads  of  European  politics.  They  were  the  property  of  a 
European  power,  and  they  naturally  were  compelled  to  share 
the  experiences  of  that  power,  in  peace  and  in  war.  At  that 
period,  moreover,  England  was  much  more  involved  in  Euro 
pean  politics  and  wars  than  at  the  present  time.  In  the  last 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  her  policy  to  refrain  from 
continental  embroilments,  in  "splendid  isolation."  But  in  the 
Stuart  and  Hanoverian  days  she  was  almost  incessantly  involved 
in  political  or  military  complications  with  continental  powers, 
and  chiefly  with  France  and  Spain,  the  two  powers  which  had 
holdings  upon  this  continent  and  with  which  therefore  the  Eng 
lish  colonies  here  came  into  direct  contact.  For  while  Spain 
remained  settled  in  Florida,  at  the  south  and  southwest  of  the 
colonies,  France  was  settled  in  Canada  and  the  Ohio  and  Miss 
issippi  valleys,  at  the  north,  northeast,  and  northwest,  thus  com 
pletely  encircling  the  colonies  on  the  landward  side. 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  11 

Before  we  leave  the  Stuart  regime,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  not 
only  did  those  four  unworthy  monarchs  make  the  American 
colonies  pawns  and  sacrifices  in  their  European  games,  but  they 
planted  here  by  other  and  not  less  hateful  means  the  first  seeds 
of  American  resentment  toward  and  alienation  from  the  mother 
country.  The  first  causes  of  the  political — there  never  was  any 
other  than  political — animosity  of  the  colonies  against  England, 
were  not  due  to  any  desire  or  intent  of  the  English  people,  but 
were,  on  the  whole,  contrary  thereto.  They  were  the  personal 
work  of  those  Stuart  kings  who  so  often  and  so  flagrantly  de 
fied  and  violated  the  public  will  at  home  in  England,  who  so  dis 
graced  and  humiliated  the  English  name  abroad,  and  who  were, 
upon  the  whole,  not  only  among  the  very  worst  that  England 
ever  had  but  also  among  the  very  worst  that  any  country  ever 
had.  Every  one  of  those  four  kings  did  something  to  oppress 
the  American  colonies  and  to  implant  in  them  the  germs  of  re 
volt,  though  at  first  it  was  revolt  like  that  of  the  English  at 
home  in  England  against  Charles  I  and  James  II,  and  not 
against  England  but  against  England's  semi-alien  oppressors. 
James  I,  as  we  have  seen,  not  only  treated  the  Virginians  with 
monstrous  tyranny  and  bad  faith,  but  also  issued  a  decree  for 
bidding  the  Puritans  to  emigrate  to  America.  Charles  I  issued 
several  decrees  to  the  same  effect,  forbidding  migration  without 
leave,  and  forbidding  shipowners  to  carry  such  emigrants. 
There  was  never  in  history  a  nobler  or  more  profitable  bit  of 
fate's  irony  than  in  the  fact  that  in  this  way  Charles  forcibly 
detained  in  England,  for  his  own  subsequent  destruction,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  John  Hampden  and  Arthur  Haslerig! 

Under  the  fine  statesmanship  of  the  Commonwealth  the  first 
definite  and  consistent  colonial  policy  was  adopted  by  the  English 
government.  Then  for  the  first  time  the  colonies  began  to  be 
regularly  treated  as  something  of  value,  to  be  cultivated  and 
developed  for  their  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  the  empire. 
At  the  same  time  there  first  arose  in  the  colonies  the  political 
party  spirit  and  divisions  which  prevailed  in  England.  Before 
that  time  there  were  Cavaliers  and  Puritans,  Tories  and  Whigs, 
in  the  colonies.  But  they  had  not  ventured  to  assert  themselves 
as  such  to  any  marked  degree,  save  in  purely  local  affairs.  To 
England  and  the  English  government  they  were  English  colo- 


12  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

nists  and  nothing  else.     It  was  not  safe  for  so  few  and  feeble  a 
folk,  under  the  arbitrary  tyranny  of  a  Stuart,  to  identify  them 
selves  with  factional  feuds  at  home.     But  under  the  freedom  of 
Cromwell's  administration,  and  with  the  accompanying  growth 
of  the  colonies,  they  felt  emboldened  to  show  the  political  colors 
which  they  would  have  worn  had  they  remained  at  home.     There 
arose  in  the  colonies  parties  of  Cavalier  and  Roundhead,  Church 
man  and  Independent,  corresponding  with  those  in  England, 
and  making  themselves  known  and  their  influence  and  sympathy 
felt  to  their  brethren  in  the  mother  country.     Such  party  di 
visions  were  by  no  means  equal.     In  New  England  the  Puritans, 
Roundheads,  or  Independents  were  the  vast  majority,  and  they 
governed  their  colonies  in  their  own  way.     Much  shallow  and 
senseless  reproach  has  been  cast  upon  the  New  England  colo 
nists  for  coming  to  America  to  find  ''freedom  to  worship  God," 
and  then  persecuting  others  for  worshiping  Him  in  a  different 
manner  from  their  own.     The  fact  is  that  those  who  came  thither 
for  " freedom  to  worship  God"  were  not  the  Puritans  of  Boston 
and  New  England  in  general,  but  the  mere  handful  of  Pilgrims 
at  Plymouth,  and  these  latter  were  not  intolerant  persecutors. 
The  persecution  of  Quakers,  Baptists,  Episcopalians,  and  others 
was  the  work  not  of  the  Pilgrims  but  of  the  Puritans,  and  the 
Puritans  made  no  pretense  of  seeking  any  general  "freedom  to 
worship  God."     So  far  as  they  sought  such  freedom,  it  was  for 
themselves  and  for  themselves  alone.     They  wanted  to  worship 
God  in  their  own  way,  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own 
consciences.     Since  they  were  not  permitted  to  do  so  in  England 
without  interference,  they  came  to  America,  and  they  did  not 
propose  to  let  their  old  persecutors  or  any  one  else  follow  them 
hither  to  interfere  with  their  freedom  here.     Harsh  as  their 
conduct  seemed  at  times,  it  was  entirely  logical  and  consistent, 
as  a  measure  of  self-protection,  and  is  to  be  regarded  with  a 
certain  stern  admiration  rather  than  with  reproof. 

Nor  is  it  truthful  or  honest  to  single  out  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut  for  adverse  comment,  for  their  alleged  intolerance 
and  severity.  The  other  colonies  acted  in  precisely  the  same 
way.  Virginia,  settled  and  developed  by  Episcopalians,  was 
every  whit  as  intolerant  as  Massachusetts.  It  fined  and  banished 
and  otherwise  oppressed  Independents  and  all  who  would  not 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  13 

conform  with  Episcopalianism,  just  as  the  Massachusetts  men 
treated  Episcopalians  and  Quakers,  and  it  enacted  ''blue"  laws 
as  extreme  as  any  ever  known  in  Connecticut.  Maryland,  the 
Roman  Catholic  colony,  too,  is  often  cited  as  a  noble  example 
of  religious  liberty.  But  the  fact  is  that  its  tolerance  extended 
to  only  certain  sects.  Those  holding  Unitarian  beliefs  were 
savagely  outlawed.  Any  one  uttering  an  oath,  or  any  words 
that  seemed  blasphemous  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  was 
put  to  death ;  and  all  the  people  were  compelled  to  eat  fish  and 
abstain  from  meat  on  Fridays.  If  there  was  one  entirely  free 
colony  among  them  all,  it  was  that  of  Rhode  Island  and  Provi 
dence  Plantations. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  then,  the  Ameri 
can  colonies  had  not  only  established  well-defined  civil  and  re 
ligious  policies  of  their  own,  but  they  had  also  begun  to  exert 
a  marked  and  important  reflex  influence  upon  England  and 
upon  Europe.  In  them  were  nurtured  and  developed  to  full 
puissance  much  of  the  independence  and  love  of  liberty  which 
presently  brought  about  the  British  revolution  and  freed  that 
kingdom  from  the  Stuart  incubus.  Not  a  few  of  the  most  ca 
pable  English  statesmen  of  commonwealth  and  revolutionary 
days  had  their  training  and  grounding  in  practical  government 
in  Massachusetts.  Charles  I,  as  we  have  seen,  kept  Cromwell 
and  Hampden  and  Haslerig  at  home.  But  Harry  Vane,  and 
George  Downing,  and  Hugh  Peters  came  to  Massachusetts,  and 
in  the  pure  air  of  that  colony  developed  the  qualities  which  were 
so  strenuously  displayed  upon  their  return  to  England.  It  is 
of  interest  to  recall,  by  the  way,  a  circumstance  which,  while 
it  has  no  direct  bearing  upon  our  subject,  has  an  indirect  signifi 
cance  of  the  inexplicable  manner  in  which  popular  sentiments 
are  swayed.  Under  the  Stuarts  the  British  flag,  then  called  the 
King's  colors,  was  unhesitatingly  adopted  by  the  colonies.  In 
spite  of  the  ill-treatment  which  they  suffered  at  Stuart  hands, 
the  colonists  were  loyal  to  the  Stuart  flag,  which  consisted  simply 
of  the  Union  Jack,  the  red  cross  of  St.  George  and  the  white 
cross  of  St.  Andrew  superimposed,  upon  a  blue  field.  But  when 
the  Cromwellian  Commonwealth,  which  did  so  much  for  the 
colonies,  changed  the  design,  putting  the  Union  Jack  as  a  canton 
in  the  corner  of  a  red  field,  as  in  the  British  flag  of  to-day,  the 


14  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

colonists  would  have  none  of  it.     They  clung  to  the  flag  of  their 
oppressors;  they  rejected  the  flag  of  their  friends. 

With  the  temporary  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  for  the  com 
plete  filling  of  their  cup  of  wrath,  the  colonies  were  made  to, 
suffer  bitterly  at  the  hands  of  such  creatures  as  Berkeley  and 
Andros.  True,  the  wise  policy  of  the  Commonwealth  was  not 
altogether  reversed.  The  colonies  were  still  regarded  as  some 
thing  to  be  prized  and  developed.  But  they  were  to  be  deprived 
of  their  autonomous  charters,  and  developed  as  crown  colonies. 
They  were,  moreover,  to  be  kept  in  that  ignorance  which  is  the 
only  foundation  of  such  thrones  as  that  of  the  Stuarts.  Charles 
II  prohibited  printing  in  the  colonies,  and  James  II  ordered 
Andros  to  "allow  of  no  printing  press."  Berkeley  in  1671  offi 
cially  reported :  "I  thank  God  we  have  no  free  schools,  nor  any 
printing,  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  them  this  hundred  years. 
God  keep  us  from  both!"  No  wonder  that  Evelyn,  who  was 
one  of  Charles  II  's  council,  tells  us  in  his  diary  that  in  1670  the 
council  was  much  concerned  over  New  England,  "  since  we  un 
derstood  they  were  a  people  almost  upon  the  very  brink  of  re 
nouncing  any  dependence  on  the  Crown."  Yes,  just  as  were 
most  of  the  people  of  England  itself,  and  for  the  same  ample 
reason.  It  was  not  yet  England  that  the  colonies  were  turning 
against,  but  the  criminal  tyrants  who  were  misgoverning  Eng 
land,  against  whom  England  itself  presently  rose  in  righteous 
and  glorious  revolt. 

Nor  was  such  misgovernment  the  only  grievance  of  the  colo 
nies  against  the  Stuarts.  Again  and  again  the  supine  or  cor 
rupt  foreign  policy  of  that  dynasty  made  the  colonies  its  victims. 
In  1632  a  treaty  was  made  between  Charles  I  of  England  and 
Louis  XIII  of  France,  by  which  Charles  restored  to  Louis  abso 
lutely  and  without  demarcation  of  limits  "all  places  possessed 
by  the  English  in  New  France,  1'Acadie,  and  Canada,  particu 
larly  Port  Royal,  Quebec,  and  Cape  Breton."  To  this  treaty 
we  may  justly  ascribe  nearly  all  the  subsequent  and  terribly 
costly  troubles  between  England  and  France  in  America,  in 
which  the  colonies  suffered  so  severely.  Again,  in  1654,  Crom 
well  seized  Acadia  from  France ;  but  again  the  servile  Charles 
II  surrendered  it  in  the  treaty  of  Breda,  in  1667.  In  the  last- 
named  year,  too,  Charles  became  involved  in  hostilities  with 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  15 

Holland,  in  which  of  course  the  colonies  became  concerned,  and 
for  the  next  seven  years  the  Virginian  coast  was  subject  to  pe 
riodical  ravages  at  the  hands  of  the  Dutch,  from  which  Charles 
could  or  would  afford  no  protection.  The  colonists  had  given  no 
cause  for  such  treatment  by  the  Dutch.  They  were  the  innocent 
victims  of  an  evil  policy  in  England.  The  Dutch  were  striking 
at  England  in  Virginia,  just  as  the  English  had  formerly  struck 
at  Spain  in  that  quarter.  The  colonists  understood  all  this. 
But  while  their  disaffection  and  resentment  toward  the  Stuarts 
waxed  apace,  their  loyalty  to  England,  as  England,  remained 
unimpaired.  Therefore  they  continued  to  fight  freely  and  val 
iantly,  whenever  occasion  called,  not  only  for  themselves  but  for 
England  and  for  the  British  Empire. 

Charles  II  and  James  II  made  themselves  vassals  and  tribu 
taries  of  France.  For  that  reason  their  American  colonies  suf 
fered  little  molestation  from  the  French.  But  immediately 
upon  the  fall  of  the  Stuarts,  the  French  storm  broke.  The 
Stuarts  found  refuge  in  France,  and  France  took  up  their  cause, 
and,  following  the  old  precedent,  struck  at  England  in  America. 
Under  Frontenac,  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  ruthless  of  all 
French  colonial  governors,  raids  upon  the  northern  colonies  were 
begun,  and  a  state  of  chronic  warfare  was  established  which 
lasted  with  little  respite  for  seventy  years.  Already  in  1686 
the  Spanish  had  resumed  hostilities  on  the  Carolina  frontier, 
so  that  by  1689  there  was  war  all  along  the  landward  line  of  the 
colonies.  In  these  hostilities  the  colonists  were  largely  left  to 
their  own  defense.  They  suffered  terribly,  and  they  also  took 
the  aggressive  and  inflicted  heavy  blows  upon  their  enemies. 
Frontenac  signalized  his  first  attack  upon  them  with  the  hideous 
massacres  of  Schenectady,  Salmon  Falls,  Casco  Bay,  and  Haver- 
hill.  Quickly  the  colonists  responded,  not  with  massacres  but 
with  bold  campaigns  for  the  conquest  of  Canada  and  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  French  from  the  North  American  continent.  In 
1690  the  New  Englanders  captured  Port  Royal  once  more,  and 
at  the  same  time  they  sent  an  expedition  against  Quebec  which 
would  doubtless  have  succeeded  had  it  not  been  handicapped  by 
the  incapacity  of  the  royal  governor.  In  that  desperate  cam 
paign  a  thousand  colonial  soldiers  perished,  and  the  colonies 
incurred  a  debt  of  140,000  pounds  sterling,  and  were  compelled 


16  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

to  issue  the  first  paper  money  in  our  history.  In  1649  the 
French  planned  a  descent  upon  Boston,  which  failed.  Then 
there  came  a  brief  breathing  space  in  the  treaty  of  Ryswick,  in 
1697. 

In  that  treaty  the  arrogance  of  Louis  XIV  was  first  decisively 
checked.  He  suffered  heavy  losses  in  Europe,  he  was  compelled 
to  recognize  William  of  Orange  as  the  lawful  king  of  England, 
with  Anne  as  his  heir,  and  the  political  map  of  Europe  was 
largely  recast.  Unhappily  the  English  government  thought  it 
politic  to  give  France  consolation  for  those  losses  at  home  by 
restoring  Port  Royal,  thus  once  more  depriving  the  colonists  of 
the  fruit  of  hard-won  victory.  Indeed,  it  was  such  conduct  on 
the  part  of  the  home  government  that  so  long  extended  the 
struggle  for  national  supremacy  in  America.  Had  England  and 
France  both  kept  hands  off  and  let  the  colonists  settle  matters 
for  themselves,  the  settlement  would  have  been  prompt,  decisive, 
and  lasting.  For  the  English  genius  of  colonization  was  splen 
didly  at  work.  The  French  had  settled  first  upon  this  continent, 
and  claimed  by  far  the  larger  area,  and  France  at  home  was 
twice  as  populous  as  England.  Yet  the  census  of  1688  showed 
only  11,248  French  colonists  in  the  whole  of  North  America, 
while  the  English  numbered  more  than  207,000.  Massachusetts 
alone  had  four  times  and  Virginia  nearly  five  times  as  many 
citizens  as  the  entire  French  Empire  in  America.  By  1714 
the  English  population  increased  to  375,000,  and  the  French  to 
only  30,000.  But  the  colonists  were  not  left  to  fight  it  out  for 
themselves.  They  were  still  mere  pawns  in  the  European  game. 
Nevertheless  they  were  beginning  to  prepare,  perhaps  as  yet 
unconsciously,  for  something  better  than  pawnship.  The  first 
Continental  Congress  was  held  in  these  colonies  in  1690,  and  it 
was  held  expressly  to  consider  and  to  deal  with  the  complica 
tions  in  which  the  colonies  found  themselves  involved  through 
European  wars. 

The  peace  of  Ryswick  was  soon  broken.  Lous  XIV,  mad 
dened  at  the  check  he  had  received,  sought  to  recoup  his  ambi 
tious  fortunes  in  another  direction.  Spain  still  possessed  a  vast 
colonial  empire,  besides  the  best  strategic  position  in  all  Europe, 
and  had  within  herself  still  the  ' '  promise  and  potency ' '  of  much 
achievement.  His  plan  was,  then,  to  unite  France  and  Spain 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  17 

under  one  crown.  So  he  put  his  grandson,  Philip  of  Anjou, 
upon  the  Spanish  throne,  as  the  first  step  toward  the  union  of 
the  two  kingdoms  in  a  power  that  should  dominate  the  Conti 
nent.  Thus  a  Franco-Spanish  alliance  was  formed,  which  pres 
ently  again  circled  the  English  colonies  with  active  foes  on  all 
the  landward  borders.  England's  response  was  powerfully 
made  in  Europe,  and  the  victories  of  Marlborough  shattered  the 
"great  monarch's"  power  forever.  The  war  was  resumed  in 
America,  too,  largely  by  the  colonists.  " Queen  Anne's  War," 
between  England  and  Spain,  was  actually  anticipated  in  Amer 
ica.  Before  that  war  was  declared  formally,  the  Spanish  organ 
ized  an  Indian  raid  upon  the  Carolina  plantations,  which  was  re 
pulsed  by  the  colonists.  Then  the  colonists  sent  out  a  counter- 
expedition  of  their  own,  from  Charleston,  captured  the  town  of 
St.  Augustine  in  Florida,  and  laid  siege  to  the  fort,  which  they 
would  have  captured,  too,  had  not  a  strong  Spanish  fleet  come 
to  its  rescue.  In  1703  they  made  another  raid  into  Florida, 
and  in  1706  they  beat  off  an  attack  of  the  allied  French  and 
Spanish  fleets  upon  Charleston,  with  heavy  loss  to  the  fleet.  Nor 
were  they  idle  at  the  North.  They  played  a  leading  part  in  the 
recapture  of  Port  Royal  in  1710,  and  of  the  reconquest  of 
1'Acadie,  or  Nova  Scotia.  We  must  not  forget,  either,  that  in 
1703  they  sent  troops  to  defend  the  island  of  Jamaica  against 
invasion,  and  gave  money  and  goods  freely  to  rehabilitate  Nevis 
and  other  West  India  islands  which  had  been  ravaged  and  de 
spoiled.  Through  these  operations,  and  especially  through  the 
abominable  massacres  instigated  or  perpetrated  by  Frontenac 
and  his  successors,  the  New  Englanders  were  imbued  with  a  deep 
distrust  and  hatred  of  the  French,  which  continued  to  prevail 
among  them  for  several  generations,  and  which  may  even  to 
this  day  be  perceived. 

The  next  respite  from  open  war  was  found  in  the  treaty  of 
Utrecht,  in  1713.  That  making  of  peace  inspired  the  writing  of 
a  sublime  "Te  Deum,"  nor  was  it  altogether  unworthy  of  such 
distinction.  The  ambitious  plans  of  the  French  king  were  hope 
lessly  ruined  by  the  permanent  separation  of  the  French  and 
Spanish  crowns  and  the  confirmation  of  the  Hanoverian  suc 
cession  in  England.  At  the  same  time  Newfoundland,  Nova 
Scotia,  and  the  great  Hudson  Bay  Territory  were  finally  given 

VOL.  1—2 


18  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

to  England.  Unhappily,  also,  to  the  latter  was  given  a  monopoly 
of  the  slave  trade  between  Africa  and  North  America.  But  the 
peace  of  Utrecht  was  illusive  and  of  short  duration.  The 
French  in  Canada  and  the  Spanish  in  Florida  never  ceased  to 
incite  the  Indians  to  hostilities  against  the  English  settlers,  and 
within  five  years  open  war  was  resumed.  In  1739  the  Virginia 
colonists  were  upon  the  point  of  despatching  a  strong  expedition 
to  Florida,  for  the  conquest  and  annexation  of  that  country,  and 
Alexander  Spottiswoode,  the  father  of  American  expansion,  was 
to  be  recalled  from  retirement  to  lead  it.  The  next  year  the  colo 
nists  sent  three  thousand  men  to  aid  the  English  in  the  siege  of 
Carthagena,  and  in  1741  they  sent  a  still  larger  contingent  at 
their  own  expense  to  assist  in  the  conquest  of  Cuba.  In  those 
years,  too,  they  furnished  for  England's  wars  a  larger  and 
stronger  fleet,  in  ships  and  guns  and  men,  than  the  whole  Eng 
lish  navy  had  been  at  the  time  of  the  Great  Armada.  In  1745 
the  colonists  took  the  leading  part  in  the  capture  of  Louisbourg. 
Indeed,  all  through  the  wars  that  ended  in  1748  the  colonists 
performed  mighty  deeds  and  won  great  glory.  But  then  came 
the  bungling  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  Under  it  Cape  Breton 
Island  was  restored  to  France,  and  the  boundaries  of  Nova 
Scotia  were  left  undetermined,  the  French  insisting  that  the 
English  were  entitled  to  only  the  peninsula,  while  the  English 
claimed  ownership  clear  back  to  the  St.  Lawrence  River.  The 
question  of  the  ownership  of  the  Ohio  and  upper  Mississippi  val 
leys  was  also  left  unsettled,  the  French  claiming  that  their  Ca 
nadian  and  Louisianian  possessions  were  coterminous,  while  the 
English  claimed  that  their  Virginian  colony  extended  across  the 
continent.  Thus  in  this  treaty  once  more  were  fruits  of  co 
lonial  effort  sacrificed,  and  vexatious  problems  were  left  for  some 
future  time  to  solve. 

That  time  of  solution  was,  however,  coming  fast.  It  was  true, 
as  Montesquieu  declared  in  1748,  that  "a  free,  prosperous,  and 
great  people  was  forming  in  the  forests  of  America."  The 
Americans  themselves  began  to  be  conscious  of  that  fact,  perhaps 
more  so  than  their  English  kin  at  home.  At  that  time  the  Eng 
lish  government,  in  its  colonial  department,  was  not  marked  with 
the  greatest  wisdom  or  highest  efficiency.  It  was  dominated  by 
two  men,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  19 

There  could  not  easily  be  imagined  two  men  more  unlike.  The 
one  was  slovenly,  fickle,  perfidious,  cowardly,  and  base ;  the  other, 
precise,  resolute,  loyal,  brave,  and  proud.  Happily,  Bedford 
had  the  more  direct  control  of  American  affairs.  But  he  was  by 
no  means  an  ideal  administrator  for  the  colonies,  since  he  was 
lacking  in  both  knowledge  of  their  needs  and  sympathy  with 
their  aspirations.  Nor  was  the  case  helped  by  making  the  young 
Earl  of  Halifax  the  First  Commissioner  for  the  Plantations. 
This  nobleman  was  a  shallow,  pretentious,  overbearing  youth, 
with  ambitions  far  beyond  his  abilities,  and  an  almost  total  lack 
of  judicial  qualities.  Ignorant  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  colo 
nies,  he  began  his  work  by  seeking  information  from  the  royal 
governors  and  others.  The  reports  which  he  received  were  prob 
ably  grossly  untrustworthy  and  distorted.  To  him,  who  accepted 
them  as  true,  they  seemed  monstrous.  From  South  Carolina  he 
heard  that  "  leveling  principles  prevail.  The  people  have  got 
the  whole  administration  into  their  hands."  Virginia  "had 
nothing  at  heart  but  to  lessen  the  influence  of  the  Crown."  In 
Pennsylvania,  he  was  informed,  the  "obstinate,  wrongheaded 
Assembly  of  Quakers  pretended  not  to  be  accountable  to  his 
Majesty  or  his  government."  In  New  Jersey  there  was  "a 
growing  rebellion."  New  England  was,  of  course,  worst  of  all. 
There  had  already  been  "a  rebellious  insurrection"  in  Boston, 
and  that,  and  similar  evil  manifestations,  arose  from  the  con 
stitution  of  the  colony,  "by  which  the  management  of  it  de 
volves  on  the  populace,  assembled  in  their  town  meetings." 

It  does  not  appear  that  a  more  crassly  ill-conceived  criticism 
was  ever  passed  upon  Massachusetts,  or  upon  any  colony  in  the 
history  of  America  or  of  the  world,  than  that  directed  against 
the  "town  meetings."  No  doubt  that  feature  of  the  colonial 
government  at  that  time,  as  afterward,  dominated  the  colonies 
and  shaped  their  destinies.  But  it  was  in  fact,  as  it  was  per 
ceived  by  wiser  minds  to  be,  the  supreme  virtue  of  the  English 
colonial  system,  and  the  secret  or  one  great  secret  of  the  success 
of  the  English  colonies  over  those  of  France  and  Spain.  That 
shrewd  and  judicious  French  observer,  De  Tocqueville,  after 
ward  bore  witness  to  that  fact,  in  his  "Democracy  in  America." 
The  French  colonies  in  America  failed,  he  confessed,  because 
they  had  no  such  institution  as  town  meetings,  and  the  English 


20  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

colonies  prospered  and  grew  into  powerful  States  because  they 
had  them.  "Nations  which  are  accustomed  to  township  insti 
tutions  and  municipal  government/'  he  wrote,  "are  better  able 
than  any  other  to  found  prosperous  colonies.  The  habit  of 
thinking  and  governing  for  oneself  is  indispensable  in  a  new 
country."  Never  were  words  truer  than  those,  and  it  was  a 
part  of  the  condemnation  of  the  British  government  of  those 
days  that  it  did  not  recognize  the  fact.  Instead  of  regarding 
the  town  meetings  of  Massachusetts  with  suspicion  and  aver 
sion,  it  would  have  been  well  if  Halifax  and  the  others  in  Lon 
don  had  hailed  them  with  approval  and  encouraged  them.  But 
to  do  so  would  have  been  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  their  caste. 

The  gist  of  the  whole  situation  was  that  the  spirit  of  popular 
government,  as  against  royal  autocracy  or  class  privilege,  was 
growing  in  America.  It  was  also  growing  in  England,  too. 
But  it  seemed  more  conspicuous  and  more  menacing  in  the  colo 
nies  than  at  home,  and  was,  moreover,  fatuously  supposed  to  be 
more  easily  suppressed.  So  the  young  Halifax  set  out  to  restore 
the  colonies  to  order  by  Act  of  Parliament,  much  after  the  man 
ner  of  the  papal  bull  against  the  comet.  The  result  was  not  as 
mischievous  as  it  might  have  been,  owing  to  the  paramount  im 
portance  of  other  issues  which  arose  at  the  same  time.  Such  mis 
chief  as  it  did  was  subjective  rather  than  objective.  America 
was  not  alienated  from  England  by  his  maladroit  efforts,  but 
among  certain  statesmen  in  England  an  unfounded  and  unfor 
tunate  prejudice  against  America  was  engendered. 

Much  more  important  and  more  effective  was  Halifax's  effort, 
at  the  same  time,  to  settle  the  questions  which  had  been  left  open 
by  the  Aix-la-Chapelle  treaty,  and  to  secure  for  England  her 
full  claims  in  Nova  Scotia  and  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  In  Nova 
Scotia,  as  we  have  seen,  the  English  claimed  territory  extending 
inland  to  the  St.  Lawrence  River,  while  the  French  strove  to  con 
fine  them  to  the  peninsula.  As  soon  as  Halifax  made  known  his 
plans  for  enforcing  the  English  claims,  the  smooth  and  subtle 
La  Galissoniere  promptly  moved  to  meet  him.  He  sent  Bien- 
ville  to  proclaim  French  sovereignty  in  the  Ohio  Valley,  and  at 
the  same  time,  with  characteristic  ruthlessness,  sought  to  use  the 
simple  Acadian  peasants  as  his  tools  in  Canada.  His  plan  was 
to  induce  them  to  remove  from  their  homes  on  the  peninsula,  and 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  21 

plant  themselves  anew  on  the  disputed  frontier,  there  to  be  a 
barrier  against  the  English  advance.  The  scheme  was  as  foolish 
as  it  was  wicked,  and  would  have  been  quite  as  ineffectual.  The 
Acadians  did  not  do  as  La  Galissoniere  suggested.  But  by  his 
proposal  there  was  begun  a  train  of  circumstances  which  led 
straight  to  that  most  pitiful  tragedy  of  a  people,  the  wholesale 
expatriation  of  the  Acadians.  For  that  act  of  the  British  gov 
ernment  history  has  found  few  excuses  and  much  condemnation. 
But  at  least  the  condemnation  must  fall  in  part  upon  La  Galis 
soniere  and  his  colleagues,  and  upon  those  priests  who,  backed 
with  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Church,  incited  the  simple- 
hearted  and  ignorant  Acadian  peasants  to  refuse  all  recognition 
of  British  sovereignty,  saying  to  them  from  the  altar:  ''Better 
surrender  your  meadows  to  the  sea  and  your  houses  to  the  flames, 
than,  at  the  peril  of  your  souls,  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to 
the  British  government. ' ' 

The  international  rivalry  in  the  Ohio  Valley  became  keen  in 
1751.  Louis  XV  of  France  personally  disclaimed  hostile  intent, 
protesting  to  the  British  minister  at  Paris  that  he  was  deter 
mined  to  keep  the  peace.  De  Puysieux,  the  French  minister  for 
foreign  affairs,  who  had  made  the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
said  the  same.  But  the  latter  was  in  September  of  that  year  suc 
ceeded  by  the  pugnacious  St.  Contest,  who  sniffed  the  battle  afar 
off  and  promptly  planned  a  maritime  league  against  England,  in 
which  he  was  energetically  aided  by  his  congenial  colleague, 
Rouille,  the  minister  of  marine,  who  began  preparing  for  war. 
In  all  these  things  Spain  took  a  keen  interest,  but  refrained  from 
any  direct  participation,  preferring  wisely  to  play  the  oppor 
tunist's  part  in  a  waiting  game.  Said  the  Marquis  of  Ensenada, 
the  minister  of  Ferdinand  VI:  "By  antipathy  and  also  from 
interest  the  French  and  English  will  be  enemies,  for  they  are 
rivals  for  universal  commerce. "  So  he  planned  to  let  them  fight 
each  other  to  exhaustion  and  then  at  the  psychological  moment 
to  step  in  and  seize  for  Spain  the  spoils  of  their  war. 

But  there  were  other  forces  at  work  than  those  at  London, 
Paris,  and  Madrid.  A  generation  before  the  illustrious  Spot- 
tiswoode,  that  far-seeing,  pioneer  knight-errant  of  imperial  ex 
pansion  and  of  Anglo-Saxon  mastery  of  the  North  American 
continent,  had  blazed  in  imaginative  anticipation  the  triumphal 


22  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

progress  of  British  arms  and  the  impregnable  establishment  of 
British  colonists  from  the  shores  of  the  Chesapeake  to  the  brim 
of  the  Great  Lakes.  The  dull  ears  of  the  lords  of  trade  at  Lon 
don  had  refused  to  listen  to  him.  But  now  the  crack  of  rifles 
in  the  valley  of  the  Beautiful  River  roused  them  from  their 
deaf  lethargy.  Dinwiddie  and  his  Ohio  Company  were  forcing 
the  hand  of  England  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  George  Washington 
and  his  "self-willed  and  ungovernable"  followers  pushed  for 
ward  in  defiance  of  France  and  began  at  Great  Meadows  in  May, 
1754,  the  war  which  set  two  continents  aflame  and  transformed 
the  map  of  the  civilized  world.  We  need  not  here  rehearse  the 
story  of  that  tremendous  conflict,  the  French  and  Indian  War  in 
America  and  the  Seven  Years'  War  in  Europe.  It  was  won  for 
England  largely  by  the  colonists,  who  put  20,000  troops  into  the 
field,  and  gave  400  vessels  to  make  England  mistress  of  the  seas. 
The  result  of  it  in  America  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to 
England.  Had  she  been  beaten,  she  would  have  lost  her  colo 
nial  empire  and  been  reduced  to  the  rank  of  a  second-class  power. 
Winning  it,  as  she  did,  she  was  made  the  foremost  colonial  and 
commercial  power  in  the  world,  and  France  was  wholly  expelled 
from  the  North  American  continent.  That  war  was  precipi 
tated,  was  forced  upon  England,  by  the  American  colonies,  or  by 
the  Virginia  colony ;  and  was  chiefly  fought  and  won  for  her  by 
the  colonists,  in  1754  and  1763,  who  established  and  confirmed 
the  British  Empire,  for  centuries  to  come,  as  the  foremost  colo 
nial  empire  and  the  chief  maritime  power  of  the  world.  They 
placed  the  mother  country  at  that  time  under  an  indebtedness 
which  the  long  process  of  succeeding  ages  could  scarcely  hope  to 
repay.  Yet  in  the  settling  up  of  the  terms  of  peace  at  the  end 
of  that  war,  some  of  the  purblind  politicians  of  England  actually 
hesitated  for  a  time  over  the  question  of  retaining  Canada,  won 
dering  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  restore  Canada  to 
France,  and  to  take  instead  only  the  island  of  Guadeloupe  for 
England.  Their  argument  was  that  the  colonies  were  already 
large  and  numerous  enough,  and  that  the  French  should  be  left 
in  North  America  to  be  a  check  upon  the  English  colonies  and 
to  prevent  the  latter  from  growing  so  large  as  to  overshadow 
England  itself!  Such  was  some  English  statesmanship  in  the 
year  of  grace  1763. 


COLONIAL  INFLUENCES  23 

"We  must  not  forget,  in  passing,  the  interest  of  Prussia  in  that 
war.  It  was  the  Seven  Years'  War  that  showed  Frederick  the 
Great  the  foremost  military  genius  and  ablest  ruler  of  his  age, 
and  that  raised  Prussia  from  third-class  to  first-class  rank  among 
the  powers  of  Europe.  It  put  Prussia  in  the  way  of  succeeding 
to  the  headship  of  the  German  world,  so  that,  without  greatly 
straining  our  fancy,  we  may  see  in  the  little  skirmish  at  Great 
Meadows  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  which  led  through 
Dueppel  and  Sadowa  to  Sedan  and  the  Hall  of  Mirrors  at  Ver 
sailles.  Again,  it  was  Frederick  the  Great  who,  early  in  that 
war,  declared  that  ''by  the  law  of  nations,  the  goods  of  an 
enemy  cannot  be  taken  from  on  board  the  ships  of  a  friend." 
That  was  the  first  authoritative  enunciation  of  what  has  come 
to  be  one  of  the  most  important  principles  of  international  law 
in  time  of  war,  namely,  that  "free  ships  make  free  goods." 
Later,  during  our  revolution,  France  and  other  powers  took  up 
Frederick's  declaration,  and  induced  Catherine  of  Russia  to 
put  it  forward  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  "Armed 
Neutrality."  But  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  we  owe  that 
principle  to  Frederick  the  Great,  and  that  it  was  put  forth  by 
him  in  a  war  begun  by  the  American  colonies,  at  a  time  when 
he  and  Pitt,  Prussia  and  England,  stood  alone  against  the  world. 

Note  also  that  in  the  latter  part  of  that  war  Pitt  was  com 
pelled  to  retire  from  office ;  and  that  the  wretched  bunglers  who 
succeeded  him  promptly  changed  their  relations  with  Frederick 
so  that  he  believed  that  they  had  broken  faith  and  betrayed 
him,  thus  incurring  his  wrath,  and  bringing  upon  England  it 
self  his  distrust,  contempt,  and  animosity.  It  was  quite  fitting 
that  such  a  deed  should  be  done  by  those  who  proposed  to  throw 
away  the  empire  which  the  colonists  had  won  for  them  in 
America,  and  to  retain  a  French  jailer  over  the  freedom  of 
growth  of  English  States.  Happily,  other  counsels  prevailed, 
and  England  retained  for  herself  the  fruits  of  conquest  in 
America,  though  with  bad  faith  and  fatuity  her  politicians  re 
fused  to  apportion  them  equitably  among  the  colonies,  and  thus 
sowed  seeds  of  future  trouble  and  disaster.  Speaking  at  the 
end  of  that  war,  in  1762,  Granville  exclaimed  in  rapture:  "The 
country  never  saw  so  glorious  a  war  or  so  honorable  a  peace." 
The  king  himself  declared:  "England  never  signed  such  a 


24  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

peace  before,  nor,  I  believe,  any  other  power  in  Europe. "  A 
few  years  later  that  wise  and  true  English  patriot,  David  Hart 
ley,  said  in  the  House  of  Commons:  "In  the  war  of  1756  the 
Americans  turned  the  success  of  the  war  at  both  ends  of  the  line. 
Nor  did  they  stint  their  services  to  North  America.  They  fol 
lowed  the  British  arms  out  of  their  continent  to  Havana  and 
Martinique.  And  so  they  had  done  in  the  preceding  war. 
They  were  at  the  siege  of  Carthagena — yet  what  was  Cartha- 
gena  to  them,  but  as  members  of  the  common  cause?  In  that 
war,  too,  they  took  Louisbourg  from  the  French,  single  handed, 
without  any  European  assistance.  Whenever  Great  Britain  has 
declared  war,  they  have  taken  their  part,  ever  foremost  to  par 
take  of  honor  and  danger  with  the  mother  country."  That 
noble  eulogium  was  true  and  was  well  deserved  by  the  colonies. 
Franklin  had  also  truly  boasted,  in  1768:  "Scotland  has  had 
its  rebellion ;  Ireland  has  had  its  rebellion ;  England  has  had  its 
plots  against  the  reigning  family ;  but  America  is  free  from  this 
reproach." 

Down  to  the  treaty  of  Paris  in  1763,  then,  the  English  colo 
nies  in  North  America  shared  the  political  fortunes  of  the  mother 
country,  in  peace  and  in  war.  Especially  did  they  incur  the 
enmity  of  England's  chief  enemies  of  those  days,  France  and 
Spain.  In  some  of  the  circumstances  of  the  French  and  Indian 
War,  however,  and  in  some  of  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  which  was  made  at  the  end  of  it,  were  planted  and  de 
veloped  seeds  of  revolution,  the  fruit  of  which  was  England's 
loss  of  the  major  part  of  the  empire  which  she  had  gained  in 
North  America.  We  have  quoted  the  enthusiastic  encomiums 
pronounced  by  the  king  and  by  Granville  upon  that  war  and 
the  treaty  of  peace.  Yet  at  that  very  time  the  king  was  prepar 
ing  to  establish  and  maintain  a  standing  army  of  twenty  battal 
ions  in  the  American  colonies !  Such  an  establishment  was  not 
needed  for  the  suppression  of  any  real  disloyalty  at  that  time. 
It  was  designed  to  meet  the  fictitious  conditions  which  young 
Halifax  had  discerned  in  his  alarmist  reports.  But  it  mate 
rially  aided  in  provoking  a  revolutionary  spirit  which  neither  it 
nor  any  available  English  force  was  sufficient  to  quell. 


II 

INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY 

WE  have  said  that  a  radical  change  in  the  political  tempera 
ment  of  the  colonies  occurred  in  the  days  of  Cromwell. 
At  that  time  they  began  to  align  themselves  with  the  two  great 
parties  of  the  mother  country.  Down  to  1763  they  remained 
entirely  loyal  to  the  British  connection.  Puritans  in  Massa 
chusetts  denounced  the  Stuarts,  and  Cavaliers  in  Virginia 
washed  down  a  bit  of  bread  with  wine  and  with  the  toast,  ' '  God 
send  this  C rum-well  down ! ' '  Later  they  were  Whig  and  Tory 
to  their  hearts'  content.  But  they  were  all  the  time  English 
men,  ready  to  stand  for  England  against  all  the  world.  In  or 
about  the  year  1763,  however,  another  and  more  ominous  change 
occurred.  The  colonists  then  began  to  regard  themselves  as 
Americans.  They  were  still  Englishmen,  by  nativity  or  ances 
try,  and  by  affection.  But  they  began  to  realize  that  in  some 
important  respects  American  interests  were  different  and  sepa 
rate  from  those  of  England,  and  they  insisted  that  that  fact 
should  be  recognized  by  the  English  government.  For  some 
time  American  interests  had  been  impaired  and  ignored,  under 
a  series  of  acts  which  seemed  to  be  deliberately  calculated  to  put 
and  to  keep  the  colonists  in  a  state  of  inferiority  and  degrada 
tion.  The  felling  of  white  pine  and  pitch  pine  trees  outside  of 
fenced  enclosures  was  prohibited.  It  was  forbidden  for  a  colony 
to  export,  even  to  a  neighboring  colony,  woolen  goods  or  hats 
of  domestic  manufacture.  A  hatter  was  not  permitted  to  have 
more  than  two  apprentices  at  a  time.  The  manufacture  of  steel, 
and  of  various  kinds  of  ironware,  was  prohibited.  The  bills  of 
credit  which  were  issued  by  colonial  governments  were  declared 
to  be  not  legal  tender.  With  these  and  similar  acts  the  Ameri 
cans  were  driven  to  seek  a  vindication  of  their  right  to  autonomy. 
There  was  as  yet  no  thought  of  alienation  from  the  British 
crown.  The  word  " independence"  had  no  place  in  the  political 

25 


26  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

vocabulary  of  the  colonists.  But  autonomy  was  demanded. 
Rather  let  us  say  that  the  maintenance  of  autonomy  was  de 
manded.  The  colonists  held  that  they  already  enjoyed  auton 
omy  under  their  charters  and  constitutions,  and  when  a  contro 
versy  or  a  clash  arose  over  it,  that  was  not  because  they  were 
demanding  something  new,  but  because  the  British  government 
was  trying  to  deprive  them  of  something  to  which  they  were  en 
titled  and  which  they  already  possessed.  We  shall  perceive  this 
the  more  clearly  if  we  recall  an  interview  between  Lord  Gran- 
ville,  the  lord  president  of  the  council,  and  Benjamin  Franklin, 
the  representative  of  the  colony  of  Pennsylvania,  in  1757. 
"You  Americans/'  said  Granville,  "have  wrong  ideas  of  the 
nature  of  your  constitutions;  you  contend  that  the  king's  instruc 
tions  to  his  governors  are  not  laws,  and  you  think  yourselves  at 
liberty  to  regard  or  disregard  them  at  your  own  discretion.  But 
these  instructions  are,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  you,  the  law  of 
the  land,  for  the  king  is  the  legislator  of  the  colonies!"  This 
was  new  doctrine  to  Franklin,  who  had  always  understood  that 
the  colonial  assemblies  were  colegislators  with  the  king,  just  as 
Parliament  was  in  England.  Parliament  enacted  laws,  which 
required  the  royal  assent  before  they  became  valid.  The  king 
could  make  no  law  without  Parliament.  So  the  colonists  con 
tended  it  should  be  in  the  colonies.  They  were  as  good  and  true 
Englishmen  as  those  in  England,  and  they  were  entitled  to  as 
good  treatment.  Their  colonial  assemblies,  therefore,  were  to 
make  the  laws  for  the  colonies,  and  the  laws  thus  made  were  to 
receive  the  royal  assent  before  becoming  valid.  But  the  king 
could  no  more  make  colonial  laws  without  the  cooperation  and 
indeed  the  initiative  of  the  assemblies,  than  he  could  make  Eng 
lish  laws  without  the  like  action  of  Parliament. 

There  can  be  little  question  that  had  that  contention  of  the 
colonists  been  granted  by  the  English  government,  the  colonies 
would  have  remained  contented  and  loyal.  The  demand  was 
merely  for  equal  treatment  of  all  subjects  of  the  crown,  in  what 
ever  land.  But  the  British  government  would  not  concede  it. 
In  England  itself  the  demand  for  constitutional  government 
through  a  representative  assembly  had  long  been  too  strong  for 
denial.  It  was  irresistible.  But  in  the  remote  and  compara 
tively  feeble  colonies  the  king  and  some  of  his  advisers  thought 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  27 

autocracy  still  possible.  So  it  was  that  Granville  assumed  the 
attitude  which  we  have  just  recalled.  So  it  was  that  the  lords 
of  trade  in  1760  reported  that  they  could  discern  in  the  colonies 
a  movement  and  intention  "to  establish  a  democracy  in  place 
of  his  Majesty's  government,"  and  recommended  the  taking  of 
strenuous  measures  for  the  restoration  of  the  authority  of  the 
crown  and  for  checking  the  growing  influence  of  the  popular 
assemblies. 

The  colonists  were,  from  their  point  of  view,  logical  and  right 
in  their  demand  for  autonomy  under  the  crown.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  the  crown,  however,  they  were  in  error.  The 
fact  was  that  the  crown  was  at  that  time  making  its  last  desper 
ate  stand  for  what  was  known  as  the  king's  prerogative,  and 
particularly  for  that  prerogative  which  embraced  autocratic  per 
sonal  authority  over  the  colonies.  We  must  remember  that  in 
the  fifteenth  century  the  title  of  all  unoccupied  lands  was  vested 
in  the  person  of  the  sovereign  of  the  country  by  which  those 
lands  were  discovered.  That  is  to  say,  these  American  colonies 
were  the  property  not  of  the  British  nation,  but  of  the  king. 
The  king  alone  could  sell  or  give  away  lands  for  the  founding 
of  these  colonies.  The  crown  alone  could  make  and  repeal  laws, 
and  could  appoint  and  remove  governors  and  judges.  Parlia 
ment  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  colonies  were  not  sub 
ject  to  Parliament,  but  to  the  king.  Their  charters  were  granted 
not  by  Parliament,  but  by  the  king;  and  he  could  amend  or  abro 
gate  them  at  will.  The  colonists  were  not  citizens  or  subjects 
of  the  British  Empire;  they  were  the  personal  subjects  of  the 
king. 

Now  all  this  was  the  admitted  constitutional  law  of  England. 
Franklin  conceded  it,  though  he  declared  that  the  colonies  would 
resist  it.  The  greatest  judges  of  England  upheld  it.  Neverthe 
less,  there  was  a  strong  and  growing  party  in  England  itself 
which  disputed  it,  or  which  at  least  held  that  the  king's  pre 
rogative  was  obsolete  and  should  be  abolished.  The  prerogative 
had  been  freely  exercised,  without  question  or  challenge,  by 
Queen  Elizabeth;  doubtless  because  she  exercised  it  wisely  and 
well.  Under  James  I  it  was  called  into  question,  because  of 
his  misuse  of  it.  Under  Charles  I  it  was  denied,  and  that  mon 
arch  lost  his  life  because  of  his  stubborn  insistence  upon  it. 


28  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Charles  II  exercised  it  again,  but  James  II  lost  his  crown  be 
cause,  like  Charles  I,  he  insisted  upon  maintaining  it.  Finally, 
under  George  III  this  final  attempt  was  made  to  vindicate  that 
medieval  principle,  not  in  England  herself,  but  in  her  richest 
colonies.  The  last  battle  for  the  king's  prerogative  was  fought 
out,  as  more  than  one  other  European  battle  was  fought,  upon 
American  soil. 

Of  course  the  attitude  of  the  British  Parliament  was  egre- 
giously  illogical.  It  was  held  by  the  upholders  of  the  preroga 
tive  that  the  colonies  were  not  under  Parliament,  but  under  the 
crown.  Yet  Parliament  enacted  laws  for  them,  precisely  as 
though  they  were  counties  of  the  United  Kingdom.  The  colo 
nists  argued  that  they  either  were  or  were  not  subject  to  Parlia 
ment.  If  they  were,  then  they  were  entitled  to  representation 
in  it  and  to  all  other  rights  of  British  citizens.  If  they  were 
not,  then  Parliament  had  no  right  to  make  laws  for  them  and 
they  owed  no  allegiance  or  obedience  to  it. 

In  view  of  this  attitude  of  the  colonies  the  impression  arose  in 
England  that  democracy  and  secession  were  arising  here.  No 
doubt  democracy  was  developing  in  America.  But  it  was  only 
the  democracy  that  already  existed  in  England,  and  that  for  a 
century  and  a  half  since  has  prevailed  there  without  overthrow 
ing  the  crown.  The  intention  was  not  to  establish  a  democracy 
in  place  of,  but  rather  under,  his  Majesty's  government.  But 
the  British  statesmen  stubbornly  misconceived  the  purport  of  the 
American  demand.  When  the  Americans  demanded  the  main 
tenance  of  autonomy  under  the  crown,  the  king  and  his  court 
iers  interpreted  them  as  demanding  independence  and  separa 
tion  from  the  crown. 

Yet  there  was  no  such  thought  in  the  American  mind.  In 
1762  the  British  attorney-general,  Pratt,  said  to  Franklin  that 
he  believed  that  with  all  their  boasted  affection  for  England, 
the  Americans  would  one  day  set  up  independence.  "No  such 
idea,"  replied  Franklin,  "is  entertained  by  Americans,  or  ever 
will  be,  unless  you  grossly  abuse  them."  To  Lord  Kames, 
Franklin  added:  "The  future  grandeur  and  stability  of  the 
British  Empire  lies  in  America."  There  is  no  doubt  that  Frank 
lin  was  entirely  sincere  in  these  statements,  and  there  seems  little 
reason  to  doubt  that  he  was  correct  in  his  judgment  of  his  coun- 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  29 

trymen  and  their  intentions  and  desires.  We  can  find  no  con 
vincing  indication  that  independence  was  then  thought  of  by  any 
responsible  person  in  the  colonies,  or  that  it  was  thought  of  for 
a  number  of  years  thereafter  save  by  a  very  few,  and  they  by 
no  means  leaders  of  public  policy. 

Public  opinion  was,  however,  in  the  dozen  years  before  the 
Revolution,  in  a  decidedly  inchoate  state.  America  was  an  "un- 
licked  cub."  Dependence  upon  England  for  guidance  had  dis 
couraged  the  development  of  strong  statesmanship  here,  and 
among  those  who  should  have  been  men  of  light  and  leading 
some  of  the  wildest  notions  prevailed.  Jefferson,  for  example, 
was  preaching  that  an  epidemic  of  yellow  fever  was  not  an  un 
mixed  evil,  since  it  would  discourage  the  growth  of  great  cities, 
and  he  regarded  great  cities  as  "pestilential  to  the  morals,  the 
health,  and  the  liberties  of  mankind."  Artisans  and  tradesmen 
he  held  to  be  the  ' '  panders  of  vice  and  the  instruments  by  which 
the  liberties  of  a  country  are  generally  overturned."  It  was 
in  his  view  an  error  to  attract  hither  mechanics  or  other  artisans 
from  Europe,  or  to  establish  here  manufactures  of  any  kind. 
It  would  be  better  to  leave  the  workmen  in  Europe,  carry  food 
and  raw  materials  to  them  there,  and  bring  back  the  fin 
ished  products.  Even  the  carrying  trade  should  be  done  by  oth 
ers.  He  wished  the  colonists,  and  the  States  after  independence 
had  been  achieved,  to  "practise  neither  commerce  nor  navigation, 
but  to  stand  precisely  on  the  footing  of  China."  Perhaps  in 
such  sentiments  were  to  be  found  the  germs  of  his  hatred  of  Eng 
land,  the  "nation  of  shopkeepers."  But  with  such  statesman 
ship  at  the  forefront,  we  may  well  wonder  that  America  fared 
as  well  as  it  did. 

The  effort  to  deny  or  to  withdraw  the  colonial  right  of  au 
tonomy  was  strongly  made  in  the  enactment  of  laws  taxing  the 
colonies  without  giving  them  representation  in  the  taxing  body. 
Dinwiddie,  the  Governor  of  Virginia  who  precipitated  the 
French  and  Indian  War,  was  the  first  of  the  colonial  governors 
to  suggest  that  iniquitous  and  disastrous  scheme;  though  the 
same  unenviable  distinction  is  also  claimed  for  Shirley  of  Massa 
chusetts.  But  the  principle  had  been  still  earlier  enunciated  in 
Parliament.  In  1732-33  Parliament  enacted  laws  for  the  pro 
motion  of  sugar  growing  in  the  West  Indies  at  the  expense  of 


30  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

New  England,  and  Rhode  Island  and  Providence  Plantations 
protested  against  them  in  a  petition  to  Parliament,  on  the  ground 
that  they  violated  the  charter  of  that  colony.  When  this  peti 
tion  was  announced  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Sir  William 
Yonge  opposed  the  reception  of  it.  "This,"  he  said,  "is  some 
thing  very  extraordinary,  and  in  my  opinion  looks  very  like  aim 
ing  at  an  independence  and  disclaiming  the  authority  and  juris 
diction  of  this  House,  as  if  this  House  had  not  a  power  to  tax 
them. ' '  Mr.  Winnington  spoke  to  the  same  purport.  1 1 1  hope, ' ' 
he  said,  '  *  the  petitioners  have  no  charter  which  debars  this  House 
from  taxing  them  as  well  as  any  other  subjects  of  this  nation. 
I  am  sure  they  can  have  no  such  charter."  In  the  end  such 
views  prevailed,  and  the  petition  was  not  received.  Nor  was 
that  the  end  of  that  fatuous  course  of  the  British  government, 
but  only  its  beginning.  It  was  planned  to  enact  a  measure  which 
would  specifically  and  unmistakably  establish  the  principle  of 
taxation  without  representation,  and  would  check  the  growing 
insistence  of  the  colonies  upon  a  rational  degree  of  self-govern 
ment. 

On  the  fourth  of  July,  1754,  the  colonies  completed  the  for 
mation  of  a  general  league.  It  was  purposed  that  a  petition 
should  be  presented  to  Parliament  asking  for  the  establishment 
of  a  general  government  here,  of  course  under  the  British  crown ; 
under  which  each  colony  should  retain  its  internal  constitution 
with  only  such  changes  as  the  formation  of  the  general  govern 
ment  made  necessary;  the  government  to  consist  of  a  president 
appointed  by  the  crown,  and  a  grand  council  elected  by  the 
representatives  of  the  people.  The  scheme  was  that  the  presi 
dent  should  be,  in  fact,  a  viceroy,  exercising  here  the  powers  and 
functions  which  the  king  himself  exercised  at  home ;  and  that  the 
grand  council  should  correspond  with  Parliament.  Moreover, 
the  king  should  have  the  power  of  approval  or  veto  over  all  acts 
of  this  government,  which  must  be  transmitted  to  him  for  his 
action.  Such  was  the  plan  of  government  which  the  colonists 
laid  before  the  British  government,  with  high  hopes  of  its  ac 
ceptance.  At  that  time  the  war  with  France  was  impending 
and  the  colonists  expressed  full  confidence  that,  if  such  a  system 
were  promptly  adopted,  they  would  be  able  to  master  the  French 
on  this  continent  without  any  aid  from  the  mother  country. 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  31 

It  is  obvious  that  that  plan  was  a  prototype  of  the  forms  of 
government  which  in  later  years  were  granted  to  Canada,  Aus 
tralia,  New  Zealand,  and  South  Africa,  and  under  which  those 
countries  have  enjoyed  and  are  enjoying,  and  seem  likely  in 
definitely  to  enjoy,  an  exceptionally  high  degree  of  prosperity 
and  of  contentment;  and  under  which,  instead  of  being  weaned 
away  from  the  mother  country,  they  are  greatly  confirmed  in 
loyalty  and  devotion  to  her.  There  is  convincing  reason  for  be 
lieving  that  similar  results  would  have  followed  the  granting  of 
that  request  of  the  colonists  in  1754.  But  at  that  time,  to  the 
then  ruling  statesmen  of  Great  Britain,  it  savored  of  secession 
and  of  treason.  Accordingly,  the  plan  was  not  approved.  Nor 
was  the  rejection  of  it  the  worst  thing  that  the  Westminster  gov 
ernment  did.  It  was  thought  necessary  to  rebuke  so  presumptu 
ous  an  act,  and  to  read  a  stern  lesson  to  the  ambitious  Americans. 
Accordingly  the  British  ministry  put  forward  in  its  stead  a 
proposal,  "That  the  governors  of  all  the  colonies,  assisted  by 
one  or  two  members  of  the  councils,  should  assemble  to  concert 
measures  for  the  organization  of  a  general  system  of  defense, 
to  construct  fortresses,  to  levy  troops,  with  authority  to  draw 
upon  the  British  treasury  for  all  sums  that  might  be  requisite; 
the  treasury  to  be  reimbursed  by  way  of  a  tax,  which  should  be 
laid  upon  the  colonies  by  an-  act  of  Parliament."  Thus  while 
nominally  and  plausibly  the  colonists  were  to  be  called  upon 
merely  to  repay  to  England  the  cost  of  their  own  defense,  there 
was  subtly  to  be  established  the  principle  of  parliamentary  taxa 
tion  of  the  colonists  without  their  representation.  This  insidious 
scheme  was  readily  understood  in  America.  Benjamin  Frank 
lin  dissected  and  exposed  its  purpose  in  a  letter  to  Governor 
Shirley  of  Massachusetts,  and  although  Shirley  and  other  gov 
ernors  persisted  in  approving  the  plan  and  in  urging  upon  the 
ministry  its  adoption  as  just,  practicable,  and  expedient,  oppo 
sition  to  it  became  widespread.  The  General  Court  of  Massachu 
setts  instructed  the  agent  of  the  colony  in  London  to  oppose  it 
and  every  measure  which  should  have  for  its  object  the  estab 
lishment  of  taxes  in  America  by  the  British  Parliament  on  any 
pretext  whatever.  In  the  face  of  such  opposition  the  measure 
was  dropped,  only  to  have  its  offensive  principle  revived  at  the 
close  of  the  war  which  then  came  on,  in  a  still  worse  form. 


32  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

The  fatal  Stamp  Act  was  introduced  by  Grenville  in  1765.  It 
had  previously  been  suggested  to  but  rejected  by  Walpole,  and 
had  been  vainly  proposed  by  Pelham.  It  had  been  urged  upon 
Pitt,  and  planned  by  Bute.  Townshend  was  eager  to  support  it. 
The  agents  of  Georgia  and  Massachusetts  in  England  favored  it. 
The  time  thus  seemed  auspicious  to  establish  the  authority  of 
England  over  the  colonies  and  to  put  a  quietus  upon  the  colonial 
assumption  of  autonomy.  Grenville  made,  it  is  true,  a  pretense 
of  deferring  to  colonial  wishes.  He  told  the  agents  of  the  col 
onies  that  he  was  willing  to  substitute  for  the  stamp  tax  any 
other  form  of  taxation  which  would  produce  the  necessary  reve 
nue,  and  which  might  be  more  agreeable  to  them.  With  much 
shrewdness  he  suggested  that  they  had  thus  an  opportunity  of 
establishing  the  precedent  that  they  were  to  be  consulted  before 
taxes  were  imposed.  But  this  specious  pretense  did  not  deceive 
them.  It  was  too  obvious  that  he  was  endeavoring  to  trick  them 
into  an  approval  of  the  principle  of  taxation  of  the  colonies  by 
a  parliament  in  which  they  had  no  representation. 

That  was  on  February  13,  1765.  Franklin  expostulated  with 
Grenville,  personally,  persistently,  and  vehemently.  But  it  was 
in  vain.  ' '  The  tide  was  too  strong  against  us, ' '  wrote  Franklin. 
' '  The  nation  was  provoked  by  American  claims  of  independence, 
and  all  parties  joined  in  resolving  by  this  act  to  settle  the  point. 
We  might  as  well  have  hindered  the  sun's  setting."  So  the  act 
became  a  law  on  March  22.  Whether  Franklin  was  right  in  his 
estimate  that  the  whole  English  nation  was  provoked  against 
America,  may  be  open  to  question.  If  it  was  so,  beyond  doubt 
that  state  of  affairs  did  not  last  long,  as  we  shall  presently  see. 
Moreover,  if  it  was  so,  that  provocation  was  caused  by  misap- 
apprehension — the  misapprehension  of  American  intentions,  to 
which  we  have  already  referred.  The  ''independence"  which 
Americans  then  had  in  mind  was  not  the  independence  of  1776, 
but  mere  autonomy  under  the  Crown,  such  as  Franklin  had  con 
tended  for  and  Granville  had  sought  to  deny  ten  years  before. 

The  ill-conceived  act  did  not  last  long.  But  it  did  much  mis 
chief  in  America.  It  not  only  strengthened  the  insistence  upon 
autonomy,  but  it  also  gave  rise  to  the  first  audible  suggestions  of 
secession  and  independence.  Generally,  we  must  remember,  the 
act  was  acquiesced  in,  with  regret  but  with  loyal  submission. 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  33 

Franklin  exhorted  his  countrymen  to  meet  extortion  with  thrift. 
The  very  night  that  the  act  was  passed,  he  wrote  to  Charles 
Thomson,  who  was  afterward  secretary  to  the  Continental  Con 
gress,  '  *  The  Sun  of  Liberty  is  set ;  the  Americans  must  light  the 
lamps  of  industry  and  economy."  To  this  Thomson  replied  em 
phatically,  "Be  assured  we  shall  light  torches  of  quite  another 
sort ! ' '  Even  so  fervent  a  patriot  as  James  Otis,  however,  coun 
seled  submission  to  the  law.  It  was  an  evil  law,  but  no  people 
could  expect  to  have  all  their  laws  wise  and  righteous.  The  best 
way  was  to  accept  it,  bear  it  as  best  they  could,  and  work  pa 
tiently  for  its  repeal.  Otis  and  Franklin,  with  many  others  in 
America,  and  Grenville,  Adam  Smith,  and  others  in  Great  Brit 
ain,  favored  a  solution  of  the  trouble  in  Imperial  Federation, 
proposing  to  give  the  colonies  representation  at  Westminster;  a 
proposition  which,  in  various  forms,  has  figured  conspicuously 
in  British  imperial  politics  in  our  own  time,  and  is  still  a  vital 
and  important  issue. 

One  man  in  America,  however,  almost  alone  at  that  time,  reso 
lutely  opposed  all  such  schemes,  opposed  acquiescence  in  the  law, 
and  began  to  advocate  separation  from  the  British  crown.  That 
man  was  Samuel  Adams.  When  the  enactment  of  the  Stamp 
Act  was  announced  in  1765,  he  counseled  resistance  to  it.  He 
was  equally  outspoken  against  imperial  federation.  The  dis 
tance  of  the  colonies  from  England  was  so  great,  and  communi 
cation  between  the  two  countries  was  so  imperfect,  he  argued, 
that  the  colonial  representatives  would  quickly  lose  touch  with 
their  constituents  and  be  unable  to  serve  their  interests  aright. 
Such  representation  would  not  be  effective.  It  would  not  be 
equal  to  that  of  the  British  constituencies.  Therefore  it  would 
in  principle  be  no  better  than  none  at  all.  It  may  be  that  Adams 
carried  his  point  a  little  too  far  in  some  directions,  but  there  is 
no  doubt  that  in  the  main  it  was  a  valid  one,  and  that  for  the 
reasons  which  he  set  forth  imperial  federation  would  have  been 
unsatisfactory  at  that  time.  Indeed,  we  cannot  conceive  of  its 
being  entirely  satisfactory  until  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  swift  and  frequent  steamships  and  a  constant 
cable  service  brought  America  and  England  closer  together  than 
Yorkshire  and  Middlesex  were  in  Grenville 's  time. 

Samuel  Adams  went  further,  however,  than  that.     He  began 

VOL.  I — 3 


34  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

as  early  as  1765,  because  of  that  Stamp  Act,  to  suggest  and  to 
counsel  independence.  This  we  have  on  the  testimony  of  Hutch- 
inson,  the  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts,  and  we  see  no  reason 
for  doubting  the  truth  of  it.  Indeed,  no  reason  appears  why 
Adams's  warmest  friends  should  wish  to  deny  it.  In  1768  it  is 
a  matter  of  record  that  Hutchinson  forwarded  to  London  the 
sworn  testimony  of  Richard  Sylvester  of  Boston,  that  Samuel 
Adams  had  urged  a  number  of  men  to  "take  up  arms  immedi 
ately  and  be  free."  It  might  have  been  advisable  for  Adams 
at  that  time  to  avoid  credit  for  such  utterances,  seeing  that  they 
would  have  endangered  his  neck.  But  why  should  we  at  this 
date  deny  him  the  honor  of  having  been  so  far  in  advance  of  his 
fellows  the  seer  and  forerunner  of  independence  ? 

We  have  said  that  the  Stamp  Act  was  short  lived.  Just  a 
year  after  it  was  made  it  was  destroyed.  Conway,  the  minister 
for  the  colonies,  moved  for  its  repeal  on  February  21,  1768,  and 
on  March  18  the  repeal  was  effected.  Enactment  had  taken 
thirty-seven  days;  repeal  took  only  twenty-five.  Moreover,  the 
king  did  not  sign  the  bill  on  its  passage,  being  incapacitated  by 
insanity;  but  he  did  sign  the  repealing  act.  It  is  mournful  to 
record,  however,  that  the  repeal  was  unpopular  in  England.  The 
nation  generally  seemed  displeased  with  it,  thus  corroborating 
Franklin's  testimony  of  a  year  before  as  to  the  animosity  of  all 
men  of  all  parties.  We  have  attributed  this  insane  passion  to 
misapprehension  of  America's  real  intent.  There  must  also  be 
taken  into  account  England's  ignorance  of  America  in  nearly  all 
respects.  The  natural  circumstances  cited  by  Samuel  Adams  to 
show  the  inefficiency  of  American  representation  at  Westminster 
served  equally  to  keep  Englishmen  in  England  ignorant  of 
America,  not  only  of  its  desires  and  intentions,  but  also  of  its 
powers  and  resources.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  the  repeal  in  turn 
was  scarcely  longer  lived  than  the  act  which  it  had  abolished. 
The  unpopularity  of  the  repeal  encouraged  the  half -crazy  king 
and  his  worse  than  crazy  courtiers  to  seek  a  renewal  of  the  op 
pressive  policy.  Pitt,  the  world's  foremost  champion  of  freedom 
at  that  time,  was  sent  into  the  House  of  Lords;  the  brilliant, 
plausible,  cynical,  conscienceless  Townshend  gained  the  ear  of 
the  king ;  and  then — the  deluge ! 

It  is  to  be  observed,  too,  that  the  act  repealing  the  obnoxious 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  35 

Stamp  Act  was  an  altogether  illusory  measure.  It  was  proposed 
and  supported  by  the  friends  of  America  and  of  British  consti 
tutional  liberty.  But  it  was  coupled  with  another  measure 
which  made  it  not  unacceptable  to  the  purblind  upholders  of 
autocracy.  The  real  question  at  issue  was  not  the  amount  of 
tax  levied  upon  America.  The  colonies  would  have  been  able  to 
pay  ten  times  as  much  without  suffering.  It  was  the  question 
of  abstract  principle,  whether  the  British  government  had  a 
moral  and  constitutional  right  to  levy  any  tax  whatever  upon 
the  colonists  without  their  consent.  That  was  the  real  issue. 
Samuel  Adams  emphasized  it  again  when  he  led  the  Massachu 
setts  Assembly  to  protest  against  the  Stamp  Act  because  it  tended 
"to  destroy  that  equality  which  ought  ever  to  subsist  among  all 
his  Majesty's  subjects."  Englishmen  in  England  could  not  be 
taxed  without  their  consent.  Was  it  right  to  tax  Englishmen  in 
America  without  their  consent?  Pitt  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons  and  Camden  in  the  House  of  Peers  had  unhesitatingly 
said,  No!  They  had  urged  that  the  Stamp  Act  should  be  re 
pealed,  and  not  only  that,  but  that  the  reason  for  its  repeal 
should  be  plainly  stated,  namely,  that  it  "was  founded  on  an 
erroneous  principle."  They  wanted  the  British  government  to 
admit  that  it  had  no  right  to  discriminate  between  two  classes  of 
British  subjects,  and  no  right  to  tax  one  class — colonists — with 
out  their  consent.  But  Pitt  and  Camden  were  voted  down.  The 
repeal  was  indeed  voted.  But  with  it  was  adopted  a  Declaratory 
Act,  explicitly  reasserting  that  Parliament  had  a  right  to  make 
laws  binding  upon  the  colonies  '  *  in  all  cases  whatsoever. ' '  That 
was  really  more  mischievous  than  the  original  Stamp  Act.  For 
while  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed,  the  vicious  principle  upon 
which  it  was  based  was  reaffirmed. 

May  13,  1767,  was  the  day  selected  for  sounding  the  knell  of 
the  British  Empire  in  these  States.  On  that  day  all  Americans, 
even  the  official  representatives  of  the  colonies,  were  excluded 
from  the  precincts  of  the  House  of  Commons.  An  evil  deed  was 
to  be  done,  and  it  was  to  be  done  in  secret.  Townshend  per 
formed  the  congenial  task  with  avidity.  He  laid  before  the 
House  a  scheme  for  taxing  the  American  colonies,  which  for 
subtle  and  ingenious  malice  has  probably  never  been  surpassed, 
if  equaled,  in  the  history  of  evil  government.  It  was  not  a 


36  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

renewal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  but  an  imposition  of  port  dues  and 
duties.  Now  the  Americans  had  objected  to  the  Stamp  Act, 
which  was  internal  taxation,  on  principle.  But  at  the  same  time 
they  conceded,  on  principle,  the  right  of  the  British  government 
to  regulate  commerce,  with  tariffs,  port  dues,  and  such  forms  of 
external  taxation.  Townshend  therefore,  with  exquisite  malice, 
planned  to  take  them  at  their  word,  or  at  the  letter  of  their  word. 
He  would  not  impose  the  kind  of  tax  to  which  they  objected. 
He  would  tax  them  in  the  way  in  which  they  declared  their 
willingness  to  be  taxed.  But  he  would  do  so  in  so  offensive, 
despotic,  and  oppressive  a  manner  as  to  make  the  system  far 
more  objectionable  than  the  one  which  had  been  repealed.  He 
therefore  prepared  and  introduced  a  series  of  bills  which  stand 
to  this  day  an  unsurpassed  monument  of  folly  and  wickedness. 
It  was  not,  again,  the  amount  of  the  tax  that  was  objectionable. 
That  the  colonists  were  easily  able  to  bear.  It  was  not  the  prin 
ciple  of  such  a  tax.  That,  the  colonists  conceded.  It  was  the 
way  in  which  that  tax  was  to  be  levied  and  collected.  There  is 
no  exaggeration  in  saying  that  the  execution  of  those  laws  would 
have  destroyed  the  charter  rights  of  the  colonists,  the  local  lib 
erties  of  the  municipalities,  and  even  the  personal  freedom  of 
the  citizens.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  believe  that  such  was  not  Town 
shend 's  deliberate  design.  He  meant  to  show  the  American  col 
onists,  once  for  all,  that  they  had  no  rights  which  the  Govern 
ment  in  London  was  bound  to  respect. 

In  such  fashion  were  the  destinies  of  the  colonies  to  be  dis 
posed  of,  without  their  consent  or  representation — in  the  circum 
stances  of  the  moment,  without  even  their  knowledge!  Despite 
the  earnest  opposition  of  some,  who  were  equally  friends  of 
America  and  of  England,  the  bills  were  enacted  in  the  course  of 
a  few  weeks.  In  the  following  September,  Townshend  died, 
leaving  a  legacy  of  incalculable  mischief  to  his  successor,  the 
amiable  and  benevolent  but  hopelessly  pliable  and  subservient 
Lord  North.  For  a  little  time  longer  the  friendly  Shelburne  re 
mained  in  the  colonial  office,  to  temper  to  America  the  harshness 
of  the  royal  will.  But  soon  he  was  displaced  in  favor  of  that 
most  ignorant  and  pig-headed  of  Irishmen,  Lord  Hillsborough. 
The  latter  began  his  brief  but  mischievous  career  by  grossly  in 
sulting  Franklin,  but  happily  was  in  a  little  time  forced  by 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  37 

Franklin  to  resign  the  office  which  he  so  egregiously  dishonored. 
After  him  came  Lord  Dartmouth,  who  did  his  best  for  peace 
and  justice.  But  it  was  in  vain.  A  principle  was  at  stake. 
Had  England  a  right  to  tax  the  colonies  without  their  consent? 
England  had  committed  herself  to  the  affirmative  answer,  and 
from  that  position  she  would  not  recede. 

The  Stamp  Act  was  not  the  only  measure  which  provoked  re 
sentment  in  the  colonies.  Away  back  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II 
acts  were  passed  forbidding  commerce  to  or  from  the  colonies 
in  any  save  British  or  colonial  ships.  This  was  aimed  princi 
pally  at  Holland,  and  was  another  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  these  colonies  were  dragged  into  European  controversies. 
Then  it  was  forbidden  the  colonies  to  send  their  chief  products 
to  the  markets  of  any  other  country  than  England  and  her  pos 
sessions.  Again  it  was  enacted  that  no  products  or  manufac 
tures  of  Europe  should  be  brought  to  these  colonies  save  in 
British-built  ships  sailing  from  British  ports.  Still  more,  it  was 
decreed  that  one  of  these  colonies  should  not  trade  directly  with 
another  in  certain  articles,  but  must  do  so  by  way  of  England. 
That  is  to  say,  Virginia  could  not  ship  tobacco  to  New  York 
directly,  but  must  send  it  to  England  and  thence  back  to 
New  York;  though  it  was  provided  that  it  might  be  shipped 
directly  from  one  colony  to  another  on  payment  of  a  tax  upon  it 
equal  to  the  customs  duties  it  would  have  to  pay  in  England. 
These  laws  were  not,  it  is  true,  enacted  for  the  oppression  of  the 
colonies,  but  for  the  fostering,  protection,  and  development  of 
British  trade;  and  the  colonies  had  certain  compensations  for 
them,  in  acts  forbidding  Englishmen  to  get  supplies  of  certain 
commodities  anywhere  else  than  from  the  colonies.  Thus,  Vir 
ginia  was  compelled  to  send  her  tobacco  to  the  English  market. 
But  on  the  other  hand  the  English  market  was  forbidden  to  get 
supplies  from  any  other  source  than  Virginia.  It  was  made  a 
serious  crime  for  an  Englishman  to  grow  tobacco  in  his  own 
garden  for  his  own  use.  He  must  get  it  from  Virginia.  These 
laws,  enacted  a  hundred  years  before,  were  maintained  and  en 
forced  down  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 

The  year  following  the  enactment  of  Townshend's  Act,  1768, 
was  one  of  the  most  momentous  in  colonial  history.  Hitherto 
the  colonists  had  denied  the  authority  of  Parliament,  since  they 


38  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

had  no  representation  in  it.  Now  they  took  the  extreme  step  of 
denying  the  royal  prerogative.  In  February  of  that  year  the 
Massachusetts  general  court  adopted  a  so-called  Circular  Letter, 
addressed  to  the  assemblies  of  the  other  colonies.  Of  this  docu 
ment  Samuel  Adams  was  the  author,  and  it  was  probably  his 
ablest  and  best  production.  The  purport  of  it  was  that  if  the 
injustice  and  oppression  of  the  measures  which  Townshend  had 
imposed  upon  them  were  to  be  successfully  resisted,  the  colonies 
must  stand  and  act  together.  A  copy  of  it  was  sent  to  England, 
and  was  laid  before  the  ministers.  There  it  caused  much  ex 
citement,  and  provoked  the  British  government  to  the  making 
of  perhaps  the  greatest  mistake  which  it  made  in  all  that  time  of 
blunders.  Down  to  this  time  the  ministers  and  Parliament  had 
maintained  at  least  a  pretense  of  constitutionality  in  all  their 
dealings  with  the  colonies.  But  now  the  notorious  Hillsborough 
threw  constitutionality  to  the  winds.  In  the  name  of  the  king 
he  peremptorily  ordered  the  Massachusetts  legislature  to  re 
scind  the  Circular  Letter,  under  penalty  of  immediate  dissolu 
tion;  and  at  the  same  time  he  ordered  the  other  colonial  assem 
blies  to  disregard  the  message  from  Massachusetts.  The  reply 
was  unequivocal.  By  a  vote  of  92  to  17  the  Massachusetts  as 
sembly  refused  to  rescind  the  letter,  disobeyed  Hillsborough 's 
command,  and  defied  the  authority  of  the  king.  Thereupon  the 
British  government  ordered  more  troops  to  Boston.  The  colo 
nists  called  and  held  a  provincial  convention,  in  which  ninety- 
six  towns  and  eight  districts  were  represented,  and  though  the 
royal  governor  ordered  it  to  disperse  and  threatened  it  with 
heavy  penalties,  it  did  its  work,  recited  the  grievances  of  the 
colonists,  and  protested  against  having  a  standing  army  saddled 
upon  them.  That  was  the  high-water  mark  of  colonial  spirit 
before  the  battles  of  Lexington  and  Concord. 

Parliament  met  in  November,  and  with  a  weak,  vacillating,  di 
vided  ministry  persisted  in  its  fatuous  course.  Riots  and  the 
Boston  Massacre  followed,  and  years  of  disturbance  and  discon 
tent.  England  herself  was  thus  fertilizing  the  soil  in  which 
Samuel  Adams  was  planting  the  seeds  of  revolution.  Franklin 
certainly  had  not  been  and  was  not  yet  a  secessionist.  But  he 
was  a  man  of  clear  and  discerning  vision.  In  1769  he  reported 
that  matters  were  tending  more  and  more  toward  "a  breach  and 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  39 

final  separation"  between  England  and  America.  Two  years 
later,  although  he  was  constantly  and  energetically  working  for 
peace  and  union,  he  saw  that  the  tax  laws  contained  the  seeds 
of  "a  total  disunion  of  the  countries,  though  as  yet  that  event 
may  be  at  a  considerable  distance."  That  was  in  1771.  In 
November,  1772,  Samuel  Adams  moved,  in  a  Boston  town  meet 
ing,  that  "a  Committee  of  Correspondence  be  appointed  .  .  . 
to  state  the  rights  of  the  colonists  .  .  .  and  to  communicate  and 
publish  the  same  to  the  several  towns  and  to  the  world."  This 
committee  was  imitated  by  other  Massachusetts  towns,  and  led 
the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses,  in  March,  1773,  to  adopt  reso 
lutions  recommending  the  creation  of  an  intercolonial  Committee 
of  Correspondence.  It  was  this  latter  body  which  in  1774  called 
together  the  first  Continental  Congress  and  recommended  the 
creation  of  a  continental  army. 

Samuel  Adams  kept  on  with  his  propaganda  of  independence. 
He  was  still  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,  but  people  were 
more  and  more  listening  to  him.  In  September,  1773,  he  pub 
licly  proposed  in  a  newspaper  "that  a  Congress  of  American 
States  be  assembled  as  soon  as  possible ;  draw  up  a  Bill  of  Rights ; 
and  choose  an  Ambassador  to  reside  at  the  British  Court."  A 
month  later  he  urged  in  like  manner  that  the  colonies  should 
"form  an  Independent  State,  an  American  Commonwealth." 
In  a  private  letter  he  wrote:  "If  the  British  administration 
and  government  do  not  return  to  the  principles  of  moderation 
and  equity,  the  evil  which  they  profess  to  aim  at  preventing  will 
the  sooner  be  brought  to  pass,  namely,  the  entire  separation  and 
independence  of  the  colonies. ' '  While  thus  American  sentiment 
was  being  prepared  for  war  and  independence,  there  seems  to 
have  been  a  reaction  in  England,  such  as  there  certainly  was  a 
little  later.  Franklin,  who  had  reported  the  whole  English  na 
tion  to  be  arrayed  against  America,  in  1774  declared  that  while 
angry  writers  in  England  were  trying  to  make  out  that  the  im 
pending  war  with  the  colonies  would  be  a  national  and  popular 
war,  in  fact  it  would  be  nothing  but  a  ministerial  war.  In 
February,  1775,  he  was  still  looking  for  a  victory  over  the  min 
istry  and  it  was  not  until  the  following  month,  when  he  sailed  for 
home,  that  he  abandoned  that  hope  and  regarded  war  as  inevi 
table. 


40  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

An  interesting  and  instructive  exposition  of  some  British  views 
at  this  time  is  afforded  to  us  in  the  letters  of  Horace  Walpole. 
Writing  in  February,  1774,  he  said:  "The  ministers  have  a 
much  tougher  business  on  their  hands,  in  which  even  their  facto 
tum,  the  Parliament,  may  not  be  able  to  insure  success — I  mean 
the  rupture  with  America."  In  November  of  the  same  year  he 
wrote:  "Every  day  may  bring  us  critical  news  from  America. 
I  am  in  perfect  ignorance  of  the  situation  of  affairs  there." 
And  a  few  days  later:  "There  are  advices  from  America  that 
are  said  to  be  extremely  bad.  I  don't  know  the  particulars,  but 
I  have  never  augured  well  of  that  dispute.  I  fear  we  neither 
know  how  to  proceed  or  retreat."  Still  more  to  the  point,  in 
December,  1774,  commenting  upon  the  acts  of  the  first  Conti 
nental  Congress,  which  had  then  met,  he  wrote  to  H.  S.  Conway : 
"The  Americans  at  least  have  acted  like  men,  gone  to  the  bot 
tom  at  once,  and  set  the  whole  upon  the  whole.  Our  conduct 
has  been  that  of  pert  children;  we  have  thrown  a  pebble  at  a 
mastiff,  and  are  surprised  that  it  was  not  frightened.  Now  we 
must  be  worried  by  it,  or  must  kill  the  guardian  of  the  house." 
The  acts  to  which  he  referred  were  the  resolutions  against  re 
ceiving  taxed  goods,  and  for  sending  a  petition  of  rights  to  the 
king,  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  to  the  people  of  England, 
and  the  demand  for  the  repeal  of  various  acts  of  Parliament  af 
fecting  the  colonies. 

There  were  various  other  causes,  besides  this  supreme  question 
of  principle,  which  led  to  the  final  breach  between  England  and 
the  colonies  and  caused  the  latter  to  establish  independent  rela 
tionship  with  the  nations  of  the  earth.  One  of  these  was  the 
arbitrary  conduct  of  the  British  government  at  the  end  of  the 
French  and  Indian  War,  in  annexing  the  Northwest  territory  to 
Canada,  instead  of  granting  it  to  Virginia.  That  was  not  merely 
a  denial  of  Virginia's  expectations  and  desires.  It  was  a  viola 
tion  of  explicit  grants  formerly  made.  The  English  government 
had  conceded  that  region  to  Virginia.  That  was  why  Dinwiddie 
had  sent  the  Ohio  Company — a  Virginia  concern,  with  a  Vir 
ginia  charter — into  the  wilderness  to  take  possession  of  the  Ohio 
and  Miami  valleys.  That  was  why  Virginia  troops,  under  com 
mand  of  Washington,  had  confronted  and  fought  the  French 
at  Great  Meadows  and  elsewhere.  It  was  a  grievous  wrong  to 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  41 

despoil  the  colony,  or  the  colonies,  of  territory  to  which  the 
colonial  title  had  been  made  clear,  both  in  treaties  and  on  bat 
tle  fields.  Again,  there  was  the  military  spirit,  and  the  spirit 
of  self-reliance  which  had  been  developed  in  all  the  colonies  by 
years  of  fighting.  In  England's  wars  the  colonists  had  been 
made  soldiers,  and  had  acquired  military  leaders.  They  now 
realized  their  power,  and  began  to  feel  able  to  cope  even  with 
England  herself.  They  had  seen  on  more  than  one  field  the 
proved  superiority  of  colonial  levies  over  British  troops  of  the 
line,  especially  in  the  irregular  manner  of  warfare  which  would 
naturally  prevail  to  a  considerable  extent  in  any  conflict  upon 
this  continent.  They  realized  that  they  were  strong  enough  to 
be  warranted  in  insisting  upon  what  they  believed  to  be  their 
rights. 

To  these  causes  we  may  justly  add  the  insidious  and  generally 
malicious  incitements  of  aliens,  and  especially  of  the  French. 
During  the  years  between  the  treaty  of  1763  and  the  outbreak 
of  the  American  Revolution,  French  emissaries  were  busy  in  the 
colonies,  adding  fuel  to  the  fire  of  discontent,  uttering  or  sug 
gesting  evil  against  England,  hinting  at  substantial  aid  for  the 
colonies  from  other  lands  in  case  of  rebellion,  and  in  every  pos 
sible  manner  promoting  the  movement  for  revolution.  Their 
object  in  this  was  not  recognized  by  the  colonists  at  that  time,  or 
not  clearly.  It  is  now  patent.  They  were  once  more  attempting 
to  strike  at  England  in  her  colonies  and  to  wage  a  European  war 
in  America.  Under  the  genius  of  the  elder  Pitt,  England  had 
inflicted  staggering  defeats  upon  France,  and  France  wanted  re 
venge.  She  had  no  hope  of  securing  it  by  direct  attack  upon 
England,  and  she  had  no  stomach  for  the  attempt.  But  if  she 
could  stir  up  strife  between  England  and  the  American  colo 
nies,  she  might  gain  her  end  in  the  most  complete  and  effective 
way.  In  such  a  conflict  one  side  or  the  other  would  triumph.  If 
the  colonies  triumphed,  England  would  be  robbed  of  her  richest 
possessions  and  perhaps  be  reduced  to  the  rank  of  a  third-rate 
power ;  and  the  colonies  themselves,  in  their  independence,  would 
be  so  weak  that,  deprived  of  the  protection  of  the  mother  country, 
they  would  fall  prey  to  France  and  the  latter  would  thus  regain 
the  American  Empire  of  which  England  had  robbed  her.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  England  won,  she  and  the  colonies  would  both 


42  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

be  much  impoverished  and  weakened  by  the  war,  and  might  then 
be  overcome  by  France  in  a  timely  assault.  But  France  did 
not  expect  nor  intend  that  England  should  win.  Her  plan  was 
to  provoke  the  war,  to  let  it  run  on  for  some  years,  until  both 
combatants  were  much  exhausted,  and  then  herself  to  intervene 
with  all  her  might  in  apparent  behalf  of  the  colonies.  That 
would  ensure  the  defeat  of  England,  and  give  France  a  hold 
upon  the  colonies  which  she  could  easily  improve  in  the  acquisi 
tion  of  the  major  part  of  North  America. 

With  such  aims  Frenchmen  lost  no  opportunity  to  suggest  to 
Americans:  "To  what  end  have  Americans  lavished  their 
blood,  encountered  so  many  dangers,  and  expended  so  much 
treasure,  in  the  late  war,  if  the  English  supremacy  must  con 
tinue  to  press  upon  them  with  so  much  harshness  and  arro 
gance?  Is  it  not  time  that  Americans,  no  longer  in  a  state  of 
infancy,  should  at  length  consider  themselves  a  nation,  strong 
and  formidable  in  itself?  Let  the  Americans,  then,  seize  the 
occasion,  with  a  mind  worthy  of  themselves,  now  that  they  have 
proved  their  arms,  now  that  an  enormous  public  debt  overwhelms 
England,  now  that  her  name  has  become  detestable  to  all! 
America  can  place  her  confidence  in  foreign  succors.  .  .  ." 

Nor  were  these  suggestions  void  of  plausibility.  England  had 
indeed  incurred  a  large  measure  of  that  jealous  detestation  which 
is  the  common  penalty  of  prosperity.  She  had  been  too  success 
ful.  She  had  expelled  France  from  America  and  secured  for 
herself  a  dominant  territorial  establishment  in  this  continent. 
She  had  beaten  down  Spain  and  treated  her  as  a  negligible  factor 
in  the  problem.  She  had  wrested  from  France  another  great 
empire  in  the  Far  East.  To  Holland,  too,  she  had  been  the  cause 
of  many  losses,  in  more  than  one  continent  and  ocean,  and  she 
had  imperiled  the  colonies  and  commerce  of  that  nation.  Un 
der  the  sway  of  Pitt's  successors  she  had  abandoned  Prussia 
and  incurred  the  bitter  resentment  of  the  great  Frederick.  Nor 
were  Russia  and  Sweden  kindly  inclined  toward  her.  In  all 
parts  of  the  world  England  seemed  to  be  aiming  at  the  sov 
ereignty  of  the  seas,  and  though  the  ''influence  of  sea-power  in 
history"  had  not  then  been  philosophically  set  forth,  it  was  in 
stinctively  perceived  that  sovereignty  of  the  seas  meant  more 
than  half  the  control  of  the  land  as  well.  Against  such  ap- 


INSISTING  UPON  AUTONOMY  43 

proach  toward  universal  dominion  there  arose  well-nigh  uni 
versal  opposition,  active  or  passive.  The  memory  of  defeats  in 
war,  of  losses  of  territory,  of  seizures  of  ships  on  one  pretext  or 
another,  of  the  arrogance  which  the  English  too  often  exhibited 
in  dealing  with  others,  the  dread  of  further  aggressions  by  these 
formidable  islanders — these  and  a  multitude  of  other  motives 
combined  to  inspire  the  nations  of  Europe  to  desire  the  humilia- 
tion  of  England  and  the  breaking  of  her  mighty  power.  Not 
one  of  them,  it  is  true,  nor  any  practicable  combination  of  them, 
would  venture  to  undertake  the  formidable  task.  But  if  the 
chief  English  colonies  could  be  incited  to  do  so,  and  to  be  the 
tool  of  Anglophobic  Europe?  It  would  be  a  fine  variation  of 
the  old  fable,  for  the  rats  to  get  a  bell  tied  upon  the  cat,  and 
the  cat's  claws  clipped,  by  one  of  that  cat's  own  kittens. 

How  much  or  how  little  influence  such  European  desires  and 
suggestions  had  upon  American  action,  we  may  not  now  deter 
mine.  That  those  desires  were  strong,  and  those  suggestions,  in 
citements,  urgings,  promises,  and  what  not  were  numerous,  there 
can  be  no  question.  That  without  any  of  them  the  American 
colonists  would  in  time  have  proceeded  to  declare  and  to  estab 
lish  their  independence,  is  not  to  be  doubted.  Patrick  Henry, 
in  his  ''Liberty  or  death!"  speech  in  1775,  referred  to  the  hopes 
of  aid  from  abroad  which  had  been  aroused,  when  he  said: 
"We  shall  not  fight  our  battles  alone.  There  is  a  just  God  .  .  . 
who  will  raise  up  friends  to  fight  our  battles  for  us."  Neverthe 
less,  he  did  not  wholly  rely  upon  such  hopes,  for  in  the  same 
speech  he  declared  the  ability  of  the  colonies  to  win  their  liberty 
single-handed.  "Three  millions  of  people,  armed  in  the  holy 
cause  of  liberty,  and  in  such  a  country  as  that  which  we  possess, 
are  invincible  by  any  force  which  our  enemy  can  send  against 
us." 

The  promptings  of  France  are  to  be  recalled,  then,  as  indicat 
ing  not  so  much  the  cause  of  the  revolution  as  the  attitude  and 
temper  of  the  European  mind  at  that  time  toward  the  colonies 
and  toward  England.  The  colonies  had  been  hated  and  assailed 
so  long  as  they  were  loyal  English  colonies,  because  of  that  very 
loyalty  and  that  English  connection,  and  the  foes  of  England 
had  struck  at  England  by  striking  at  her  colonies.  Now  that 
the  colonies  were  becoming  disaffected  toward  England,  the 


44  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

temper  of  England's  foes  toward  them  changed.  The  continen 
tal  powers  sought  to  strike  at  England  again  through  her  colo 
nies;  not,  however,  by  striking  at  the  colonies,  but  rather  by 
helping  or  instigating  them  to  strike  at  England.  That  was 
not,  moreover,  because  of  any  love  for  the  colonies,  but  because 
of  hatred  for  England.  Let  that  fact  not  be  forgotten.  It  was 
at  the  time  scarcely  concealed  by  any  of  the  European  powers. 
It  was  cynically  confessed  and  avowed  by  the  foremost  of  them. 
It  was  doubtless  perfectly  well  understood  by  the  clearest-headed 
of  the  colonists,  and  went  far,  as  we  shall  see,  toward  determin 
ing  their  subsequent  policy  toward  the  European  powers. 

More  than  a  century  and  a  half  of  colonial  history,  then, 
brought  us  to  the  verge  of  the  Revolution,  with  this  record  of 
foreign  relations.  We  had  come  into  actual  contact  with  only 
five  powers.  With  one  of  them,  Sweden,  our  relations  had  been 
so  slight  as  to  be  negligible.  With  Holland,  too,  they  had  been 
comparatively  slight ;  at  first  friendly,  but  later,  through  Stuart 
iniquity,  hostile.  With  two  others,  Spain  and  France,  they  had 
been  from  the  first  close  and  important,  and  they  had  almost 
invariably  been,  for  England's  sake,  unsympathetic,  and  most 
of  the  time  actively  hostile.  With  the  fifth,  England  herself, 
we  had  been  identified.  Her  relations  had  been  our  relations. 
Now  a  radical  change  was  impending.  We  were  about  to  de 
stroy  our  identity  with  England,  to  establish  temporarily  hos 
tile  relations  with  her,  and  to  create  for  ourselves  for  the  first 
time  an  independent  set  of  relations  with  all  the  world. 


Ill 

INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED 

AMERICAN  independence  is  commonly  dated  from  July  4, 
1776.  The  rise  of  the  irresistible  spirit  of  independence, 
and  the  practical  commitment  of  the  colonies  to  that  policy,  had 
a  somewhat  earlier  date.  We  have  seen  that  in  1772,  in  a  Boston 
town  meeting,  Samuel  Adams  secured  the  appointment  of  a  Com 
mittee  of  Correspondence,  for  communication  and  cooperation 
with  other  towns.  Four  months  later  the  Virginia  House  of 
Burgesses  adopted  the  same  idea  and  extended  it  to  intercolonial 
scope.  A  year  and  a  half  later  still  that  system  bore  its  richest 
fruition  in  the  assembling  of  the  first  Continental  Congress. 
This  body  met  at  Philadelphia  on  the  fourth  of  September,  1774. 
It  has  been  pronounced,  and  probably  was,  the  ablest  legislative 
body  of  equal  numbers  ever  assembled  in  the  world.  That  it 
opened  the  way  for  independence,  and  made  it  practically  cer 
tain  that  the  colonies  would  pursue  that  way,  is  not  to  be 
doubted.  At  the  same  time  it  is  equally  beyond  doubt  that  it 
made  no  overt  move  toward  independence,  but  on  the  contrary 
scrupulously  avoided  any  mention  of  such  a  thing.  All  the 
members  of  the  Congress  were  land-owners,  and  therefore  con 
servatively  inclined.  Some  of  them  were  among  the  richest  men 
in  the  colonies.  Some  of  them  came  under  explicit  instructions 
from  their  constituents  to  use  all  their  efforts  for  restoring 
amicable  relations  with  the  mother  country,  though  on  a  basis 
of  liberty ;  that  is,  the  same  liberty  in  the  colonies  that  was  en 
joyed  in  England.  Others  were  specially  instructed  to  seek  an 
improvement  of  commercial  conditions.  Still  others  were  unin- 
structed,  and  were  left  free  to  act  according  to  their  own  judg 
ment.  It  does  not  appear  that  a  single  one  was  instructed  or 
desired  by  his  colleagues  to  vote  either  for  submission  to  Eng 
land  or  for  independence. 

The  sentiment  in  favor  of  independence,  so  far  as  it  existed 

45 


46  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

at  all,  was  then  chiefly  confined  to  Massachusetts.  When  John 
Adams  and  the  other  Massachusetts  delegates  to  the  Congress 
reached  Philadelphia,  they  were  met  and  taken  into  confidential 
council  by  Rush,  Mifflin,  Bayard,  and  other  Philadelphians,  who 
earnestly  urged  them  to  keep  their  independence  views  under 
cover.  ''You  must  not,"  they  said,  "utter  the  word  'independ 
ence/  nor  give  the  least  hint  or  insinuation  of  the  idea,  either 
in  Congress  or  in  any  private  conversation;  if  you  do,  you  are 
undone,  for  independence  is  as  unpopular  in  the  Middle  and 
South  as  the  Stamp  Act  itself.  No  man  dares  to  speak  of  it." 
It  is  not  for  a  moment  to  be  imagined  either  that  these  Philadel 
phians  were  insincere  or  that  they  were  misinformed  and  igno 
rant  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  the  middle  and  southern  colonies. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  every  reason  for  believing  that  they 
spoke  the  precise  truth.  Of  all  the  colonies,  Massachusetts  and 
Virginia  were  most  purely  English  in  origin  and  composition, 
and  since  the  demand  first  for  autonomy  and  later  for  inde 
pendence  was  an  English  demand  for  equality  among  English 
men,  it  was  naturally  strongest  and  most  prompt  in  those  colo 
nies.  Moreover,  it  was  a  little  more  prompt  in  Massachusetts 
than  in  Virginia,  for  the  reason  that  the  former  was  chiefly  a 
Puritan  colony,  formed  by  Dissenters  from  the  State  Church  of 
England  and  therefore  more  inclined  toward  independence, 
while  Virginia  was  preeminently  a  colony  of  Episcopalians,  who 
were  more  generally  inclined  to  respect  the  "divine  right  of 
kings"  and  to  hesitate  before  setting  the  royal  will  at  defiance. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  to  be  recorded  that  the  Episcopalians  of  Vir 
ginia  were  second  by  only  the  narrowest  of  margins  to  the  Dis 
senters  of  Massachusetts  in  demanding  "Liberty  or  death!" 
and  in  devoting  to  that  cause  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their 
sacred  honor. 

With  such  warning  and  exhortation,  then,  Adams  and  his 
colleagues  from  Massachusetts  kept  their  designs  of  independ 
ence,  so  far  as  they  had  yet  developed  them,  hidden  in  their  own 
hearts.  From  beginning  to  end  that  session  of  Congress  made 
no  reference  to  indepenednce,  but  acted  as  though  such  a  thing 
had  never  entered  into  its  dreams.  One  of  its  most  important 
acts  was  to  form  a  so-called  association,  which  solemnly  declared 
that  after  December  1,  1774,  its  members,  in  order  to  compel 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  47 

redress  of  their  grievances,  would  neither  import  nor  consume 
any  goods  of  British  origin,  nor  export  goods  to  Great  Britain, 
Ireland,  or  the  British  West  Indies.  Another  highly  important 
work  was  a  continuation  and  further  development  of  the  work 
of  the  Committee  of  Correspondence  through  which  it  had  been 
called  into  being.  It  appointed  a  committee,  "to  state  the  rights 
of  the  colonies  in  general. ' '  The  foremost  member  of  that  com 
mittee  was  John  Jay  of  New  York.  He  declared  that  it  was 
necessary  "to  recur  to  the  law  of  nations  and  the  British  con 
stitution  to  ascertain  our  rights."  This  appeal  to  the  British 
constitution  indicated  that  he  had  in  mind  merely  the  securing 
of  equal  rights  with  other  Englishmen,  rather  than  independ 
ence  of  the  British  crown.  His  view,  moreover,  was  accepted  by 
Lee  and  Livingston,  his  colleagues  on  the  committee,  and  he  was. 
appointed  by  them  to  draft  an  address  to  the  people  of  Great 
Britain.  In  that  address  he  said :  ' l  We  consider  ourselves,  and 
do  insist  that  we  are  and  ought  to  be,  as  free  as  our  fellow  sub 
jects  in  Great  Britain.  We  believe  there  is  yet  much  virtue, 
much  justice,  and  much  public  spirit  in  the  English  nation.  To 
that  justice  we  now  appeal.  You  have  been  told  that  we  are 
seditious,  impatient  of  government,  and  desirous  of  independ 
ence;  but  these  are  mere  calumnies.  Permit  us  to  be  as  free 
as  yourselves,  and  we  shall  ever  esteem  a  union  with  you  to  be 
our  greatest  glory  and  our  greatest  happiness.  Place  us  in  the 
same  situation  that  we  were  in  at  the  close  of  the  last  war,  and 
our  former  harmony  will  be  restored. "  Now  Jay  was  not  only 
one  of  the  youngest  and  most  intrepid  men  in  the  Congress.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  fervent  and  aggressive  patriots,  as  his  sub 
sequent  career  showed.  Yet  here  he  was  in  September,  1774, 
deliberately  declaring,  and  committing  the  Congress  and  the 
nation  to  the  principle,  that  a  restoration  of  the  state  of  af 
fairs  that  existed  in  1763  would  be  entirely  satisfactory  to  the 
colonies.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  either  that  he  was  sincere  or 
that  he  correctly  expressed  the  temper  of  the  Congress,  which 
adopted  his  address.  The  other  addresses  adopted  by  the  Con 
gress,  to  the  king,  and  to  the  colonies  of  Canada,  Newfound 
land,  Nova  Scotia,  and  Florida,  corresponded  with  this  in  tone. 
There  was  no  hint  anywhere  of  independence. 

When  the  British  Parliament  met  in  the  late  fall  of  that  year, 


48  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

the  ministry  seemed  at  first  to  be  impressed  by  the  unanimity  and 
earnestness  of  the  Americans  and  to  be  inclined  toward  an 
amicable  adjustment  of  affairs  with  them.  Lord  North  inti 
mated  to  various  American  merchants  in  London  that  if  they 
presented  petitions  they  would  be  received  with  courteous  atten 
tion.  Then  came  news  that  New  York  refused  to  stand  with 
the  other  colonies  in  the  association,  in  refusing  to  receive  British 
merchandise.  That  circumstance  was  due  partly  to  the  presence 
in  New  York  city  of  a  large  faction  of  so-called  Tories,  and  partly 
to  the  commercial  spirit  of  the  place,  which  for  the  time  pre 
ferred  profit  to  patriotism.  The  news  apparently  persuaded  the 
British  ministry  that  the  colonies  were  not  united,  after  all,  and 
that  therefore  their  petitions  and  those  of  their  friends  in  Eng 
land  might  prudently  be  ignored.  Accordingly,  after  a  debate, 
the  House  of  Commons  refused  to  receive  the  petition  of  the 
American  Congress,  which  had  been  addressed  to  the  king  and 
by  him  referred  to  the  House.  It  even  refused  to  give  a  hear 
ing  upon  the  subject  to  Franklin  and  his  fellow  commissioners. 
And  it  gave  the  same  inhospitable  treatment  to  petitions  which 
were  presented  in  behalf  of  the  colonies  by  the  West  India 
Islands,  and  by  the  cities  of  London,  Liverpool,  Manchester, 
Birmingham,  Bristol,  Norwich,  and  Glasgow.  These  cities  im 
plored  Parliament  to  restore  the  calm  and  friendly  relations 
which  had  formerly  prevailed  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
colonies.  But  all  was  in  vain.  The  House  of  Commons  curtly 
threw  the  petitions  into  the  wastepaper  basket.  More  than  that, 
on  February  2,  1775,  on  the  initiative  of  Lord  North,  Parlia 
ment  proposed,  in  its  address  to  the  king,  that  the  province  of 
Massachusetts  should  be  declared  to  be  in  a  state  of  rebellion, 
supported  and  fomented  by  illegal  combinations  and  criminal 
compacts  with  the  other  colonies.  Following  this  a  bill  was  en 
acted  forbidding  the  colonies,  since  they  would  not  trade  with 
Great  Britain,  to  conduct  commerce  with  any  other  country. 
New  York  and  Georgia,  which  had  refused  to  enter  the  associa 
tion,  were  excepted  from  the  operations  of  this  act. 

That  memorable  First  Continental  Congress,  then,  spoke  no 
word  for  independence,  but  adjourned  without  indicating  that 
it  had  any  such  measure  in  mind.  On  adjournment,  it  provided 
for  another  Congress  in  May,  1775,  to  which  it  invited  Canada 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  49 

and  the  other  British  colonies  to  send  delegates — an  invitation 
which  was  not  accepted.  The  meeting  of  this  second  Congress 
commanded  of  course  much  attention  not  only  in  England  but 
also  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  In  England,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  ministerial  party  regarded  it  with  disapproval  amounting  to 
detestation,  and  called  all  who  were  concerned  in  it  rebels.  At 
the  same  time  the  unanimity  with  which  the  colonies  united  for 
cooperation  was  a  cause  of  surprise  and  concern.  The  large  com 
mercial  cities,  for  the  sake  of  business  interests,  begged  Parlia 
ment  to  be  conciliatory.  On  the  part  of  the  people  generally, 
however,  there  was  a  large  degree  of  apathy  and  weariness.  For 
ten  years  the  controversy  over  American  affairs  had  been  going 
on,  and  the  people  of  England  were  tired  of  it.  There  was  no 
thought  nor  fear  of  a  revolution  for  independence,  and  a  sug 
gestion  that  such  a  movement  could  be  successful  against  the 
might  of  Great  Britain  would  have  been  received  with  incred 
ulity  and  derision.  The  general  expectation  was  that  the  matter 
would  be  settled  by  mutual  concessions  and  compromise.  At  the 
beginning  of  1775  that  shrewd  observer  and  caustic  critic, 
Horace  Walpole,  wrote  of  the  attitude  of  the  Government  toward 
the  American  Congress:  "They  are  bold  Ministers,  who  do  not 
hesitate  on  a  civil  war  in  which  victory  may  bring  ruin. ' '  Wal 
pole  was  no  admirer  of  Lord  Chatham,  but  in  this  same  letter 
he  wrote  of  him,  referring  to  his  championship  of  the  American 
cause :  ' '  He  will  certainly  be  popular  again  with  the  clamorous 
side,  who  no  doubt  will  become  the  popular  side,  too."  On  the 
continent  of  Europe  the  general  feeling  was  one  of  opposition  to 
England  more  than  sympathy  with  America.  If  the  Congress 
was  a  source  of  embarrassment  and  menace  to  England,  so  much 
the  better  for  England's  rivals  and  foes.  But  this  feeling  was 
more  official  than  popular.  The  masses  of  the  people  in  con 
tinental  countries  were  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  state 
of  affairs  in  America  to  have  any  marked  sentiments  in  the  mat 
ter.  In  England  there  was  a  considerable  popular  knowledge 
of  the  situation  and  popular  sentiment.  But  there  was  also 
much  apathy. 

The  second  Congress  met  in  Philadelphia  on  May  10,  1775. 
Much  had  occurred  meanwhile  to  strain  further  the  relations  be 
tween  the  colonies  and  England.  Lexington  and  Concord  had 

VOL.  1—4 


50  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

been  fought,  and  Patrick  Henry  had  uttered  his  immortal  ap 
peal  for  "Liberty  or  death!"  It  is,  by  the  way,  not  at  all  cer 
tain  that  Henry  in  that  speech  meant  independence.  He  made 
no  direct  reference  to  it,  or  to  anything  more  than  a  gaining  of 
equal  rights  and  liberties  with  the  other  subjects  of  the  British 
crown.  For  these  he  would  fight,  as  Englishmen  had  fought 
before,  in  England  itself.  So  the  second  Continental  Congress 
met,  like  the  first,  without  any  independence  in  its  program. 
John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson  were  members  of  it,  but  they 
began  their  work  without  so  much  as  speaking  the  word  inde 
pendence.  Jay  also  was  there,  pursuing  his  former  policy.  He 
urged  the  sending  of  a  loyal  address  to  the  king,  and  Congress 
agreed  to  it.  Down  to  that  time,  he  afterward  declared,  he  had 
never  heard  any  American  express  a  wish  for  the  independence 
of  the  colonies.  Jay  was  a  New  Yorker,  and  had  not  come  into 
contact  with  Samuel  Adams.  But  Adams  stood  almost  alone, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  Jay's  statement  was  quite  true.  It 
is  probable  that  outside  of  a  limited  number  in  Boston,  scarcely 
any  one  in  the  colonies  had  proposed  independence  or  had  heard 
it  proposed. 

This  session  of  Congress  lasted  until  August  1,  and  then  ad 
journed  for  five  weeks.  During  that  session,  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill  was  fought,  and  the  colonies  formed  a  provisional 
union  and  organized  a  continental  army.  Franklin  proposed  a 
confederation  of  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  Canada,  the  Floridas, 
the  British  Indies,  and  Ireland — a  proposition  which  was  never 
acted  upon.  But  yet  there  was  little  thought  of  secession  from 
the  British  Empire,  and  no  official  mention  of  independence. 
Congress,  in  an  address  drafted  by  Jefferson,  set  forth  its  reasons 
for  taking  up  arms.  "Our  cause,"  it  said,  "is  just,  our  union 
is  perfect,  our  internal  resources  great,  and,  if  necessary,  foreign 
assistance  is  undoubtedly  attainable.  Before  God  and  the  world 
we  declare  that  the  arms  we  have  been  compelled  by  our  enemies 
to  assume,  we  will  employ  for  the  preservation  of  our  liberties; 
being,  with  one  mind,  resolved  to  die  free  men  rather  than  live 
slaves."  This,  it  will  be  perceived,  was  practically  a  paraphrase 
and  adaptation  of  Henry's  great  speech,  which  had  so  impressed 
Jefferson.  Thus  far,  like  Henry 's  speech,  it  made  no  declaration 
for  independence.  But  then  it  added:  "We  have  not  raised 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  51 

armies  with  designs  of  separating  from  Great  Britain  and  estab 
lishing  independent  States.  Necessity  has  not  yet  driven  us  into 
that  desperate  measure."  There  can  be  no  question  that  this 
statement  was  entirely  honest  and  sincere.  It  was  followed  with 
an  address  to  the  king,  drafted  by  Dickinson,  which  said :  '  *  We 
beseech  your  Majesty  to  direct  some  mode  by  which  the  united 
applications  of  your  faithful  colonists  to  the  throne,  in  pursuance 
of  their  common  councils,  may  be  improved  into  a  happy  and  per 
manent  reconciliation."  On  the  same  day,  July  6,  1775,  the 
Congress  wrote  to  the  corporation  of  the  City  of  London  that 
"North  America  wishes  most  ardently  for  a  lasting  connection 
with  Great  Britain  on  terms  of  just  and  equal  liberty." 

Another  letter  was  addressed  to  the  people  of  Ireland.  This 
related  the  grievances  of  the  colonists,  and  also  referred  to  those 
which  Ireland  was  suffering.  This  must  be  regarded  as  an  ex 
ceptional  step,  and  as  an  attempt,  in  classic  phrase,  to  "carry 
the  war  into  Africa,"  by  fomenting  trouble  for  England  in  the 
adjacent  island.  It  was  notorious  that  the  Irish  were,  for  many 
reasons,  dissatisfied  with  British  rule  and  felt  themselves  to  be 
suffering  various  grievances.  The  American  colonists  seem  to 
have  endeavored  to  take  advantage  of  this  fact,  and  to  incite  the 
Irish  to  increased  hostility  to  England.  "We  know,"  they  said, 
"that  you  are  not  without  your  grievances.  We  sympathize 
with  you  in  your  distress,  and  are  pleased  to  find  that  the  design 
of  subjugating  us  has  persuaded  the  administration  to  dispense 
to  Ireland  some  vagrant  rays  of  sunshine.  Even  the  tender 
mercies  of  government  have  long  been  cruel  toward  you.  In 
the  rich  pastures  of  Ireland  many  hungry  parasites  have  fed  and 
grown  strong,  to  labor  in  its  destruction."  Still  there  was  no 
mention  of  American  secession,  nor  any  incitement  to  such  action 
in  Ireland.  "God  grant,"  it  said,  "that  the  iniquitous  schemes 
of  extirpating  liberty  from  the  British  Empire  may  soon  be  de 
feated.  We  have  taken  up  arms  to  defend  it."  That  is,  the 
colonies  had  taken  up  arms  to  defend  and  maintain  liberty 
within  the  British  Empire,  not  to  seek  it  outside.  Similar  in 
tone  was  the  letter  addressed  to  the  people  of  Canada,  and  in 
deed  such  was  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Continental  Congress,  from 
May  10  to  August  1,  1775.  When,  a  little  later,  that  body  was 
accused  of  having  "aimed  at  independence,"  John  Jay  in- 


52  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

dignantly  and  effectively  repudiated  the  "malice  and  falsity"  of 
that  "ungenerous  and  groundless  charge,"  and  quoted  the 
"Journal"  of  Congress  in  support  of  his  contention.  "To 
charge  the  Congress,"  he  said,  "with  aiming  at  the  separation 
of  these  colonies  from  Great  Britain,  is  to  charge  them  falsely 
and  without  a  single  spark  of  evidence  to  support  the  accusa 
tion." 

Nothing  could  have  been  worse  than  the  British  government's 
response  to  the  American  Congress.  Horace  Walpole,  whom  we 
have  already  quoted,  wrote  of  it,  in  September,  1775:  "I  most 
heartily  wish  success  to  the  Americans.  They  have  not  made 
one  blunder ;  and  the  administration  have  made  a  thousand,  be 
sides  the  two  capital  ones  of  first  provoking  and  then  uniting  the 
colonies."  Instead  of  resorting  to  reason,  to  conciliation,  or  to 
abatement  of  grievances,  it  persisted  in  brute  force.  As  if  to 
make  that  evil  policy  as  evil  as  possible,  it  sought  to  employ  alien 
and  mercenary  "force.  As  early  as  August,  1775,  application 
was  made  to  the  Empress  of  Russia  for  twenty  thousand  soldiers 
for  service  in  America,  for  the  suppression  of  the  "rebellion." 
It  was  natural  that  such  aid  should  first  be  sought  in  Russia 
for  many  reasons.  Russia  was  just  then  more  friendly  to  Eng 
land  than  any  other  important  power  on  the  Continent.  She 
was  also  the  most  despotic  of  all,  and  therefore  most  inclined  to 
sympathize  with  the  suppression  of  a  movement  for  freedom 
and  the  rights  of  man.  The  sending  of  a  Russian  army  to  help 
another  country  to  suppress  a  freedom-seeking  revolution  is  by 
no  means  unknown  to  history.  Moreover,  Russia  had  from  1768 
to  1774  been  waging  a  successful  war  with  Turkey,  in  which 
Great  Britain  had  given  her  not  only  sympathy  but  material 
aid.  It  was  the  Englishman  Elphinstone  who  led  the  Russian 
fleet  in  the  victory  over  the  Turks  at  Scio  and  who  destroyed  the 
Turkish  fleet  at  Tchesme,  in  1770,  and  thus  essentially  and 
greatly  contributed  to  the  Russian  success.  After  overrunning 
Wallachia,  Moldavia,  the  Crimea,  and  other  Turkish  territories, 
Russia  in  1774  made  the  very  profitable  treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kai- 
narji,  by  which  she  became  mistress  of  the  Crimea  and  other 
Tartar  lands.  This  result  was  largely  owing  to  England's 
friendship.  Moreover,  the  conclusion  of  peace  in  1774  left  Rus 
sia  with  a  large,  army  of  veteran  troops  on  hand,  with  nothing  to 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  53 

do,  and  it  seemed  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  empress  might 
like  to  find  work  for  it  in  America.  Again,  there  was  the  mem 
ory  of  the  fact  that  Russia,  under  the  Empress  Elizabeth,  had 
accepted  a  subsidy  from  England. 

For  these  and  other  reasons,  therefore,  it  was  with  a  confident 
expectation  of  success  that  the  King  of  England  applied  to  the 
Empress  Catherine  for  aid.  At  that  time,  however,  Catherine 
was  in  such  matters  entirely  under  the  influence  of  her  minister, 
Panin,  an  excellent  man — for  an  eighteenth-century  Russian — 
reasonable,  free  from  rancor,  and  honest.  He  was,  however,  in 
ordinately  vain  and  susceptible  to  flattery,  and  through  those 
weaknesses,  and  through  the  giving  of  some  gimcrack  presents, 
had  been  quite  won  over  by  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  so 
that  he  took  Frederick's  view  of  England  and  America.  Now 
Frederick  was  at  this  time  feeling  particularly  resentful  toward 
England  for  what  he  deemed  her  desertion  of  him  near  the  end 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  and  while  he  had  no  especial  sympathy 
with  the  Americans — no  absolute  monarch  could  well  sympathize 
with  democracy — he  was  glad  to  see  the  colonies  used  as  a  stick 
with  which  to  beat  Great  Britain.  This  view  of  the  case  was 
adopted  by  Panin,  and  by  him  impressed  upon  the  empress. 

The  general  tone  of  the  Russian  court,  therefore,  became  cool 
toward  Great  Britain,  and  the  expectation  was  expressed  that  the 
Americans  would  succeed.  It  is  probable  that  this  expectation 
was  simulated  for  the  sake  of  annoying  the  British  minister, 
rather  than  really  felt.  That  minister,  Gunning,  however, 
seemed  not  to  notice  it.  He  was  probably  somewhat  obtuse.  At 
any  rate,  he  continued  to  act  as  though  the  Russian  court  were 
most  friendly,  and  early  in  August,  1775,  asked  Panin  if  he  would 
be  justifiable  in  reporting  to  King  George  that,  in  case  such  aid 
were  needed,  "he  might  reckon  upon  a  body  of  her  Imperial  Maj 
esty's  infantry."  Gunning  had  been  specifically  directed  to 
make  such  advances  to  the  empress,  but  he  deemed  it  most  politic 
to  make  them  as  though  entirely  on  his  responsibility  and  without 
the  fore-knowledge  of  the  British  government.  Panin,  however, 
appears  to  have  seen  through  this  ruse,  and  to  have  known  what 
Gunning's  instructions  were;  and  on  August  8  he  gave  the  em 
press's  reply.  It  was  to  the  effect  that,  because  of  gratitude  for 
favors  received  from  England  during  the  last  war,  she  was  en- 


54  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tirely  ready,  upon  this  and  every  other  occasion,  to  give  to  the 
King  of  England  all  possible  assistance,  in  whatever  manner  he 
might  think  proper.  Her  very  words,  as  reported  by  Panin  at 
her  command,  were  that  "she  found  in  herself  an  innate  affec 
tion  for  the  British  nation  which  she  would  always  cherish." 
We  have  said  that  Gunning  was  probably  obtuse.  He  was  so 
obtuse  that  he  received  this  answer  in  good  faith,  and  though  it 
did  not  contain  a  word  specifically  about  the  troops,  he  believed 
that  it  meant  that  a  Russian  army  would  be  placed  under  Brit 
ish  orders  for  service  in  America.  Doubtless  Catherine  would 
have  been  pleased  to  mediate  between  the  king  and  his  rebellious 
subjects,  as  she  indeed  afterward  explicitly  offered  to  do.  That 
she  would  not  loan  troops  for  the  American  war,  and  never  had  a 
thought  of  doing  so,  must  have  been  evident  to  everybody  at  that 
time,  excepting  Gunning. 

Or  perhaps  we  should  add  George  III  himself  as  another  ex 
ception.  He,  "with  his  own  hand,"  wrote  forthwith  to  Cather 
ine  a  most  cordial  if  not  actually  fulsome  letter  of  thanks  for  the 
promise  which  Gunning  had  reported  she  had  made.  "I  accept 
the  succor  that  your  Majesty  offers  me  of  a  part  of  your  troops," 
he  wrote,  "whom  the  acts  of  rebellion  of  my  subjects  in  some 
of  my  colonies  in  America  unhappily  require.  Nothing  shall 
efface  from  my  memory  the  offer  your  Imperial  Majesty  has 
made  to  me  on  this  occasion."  So  Gunning  was  commissioned 
to  arrange  for  the  immediate  despatch  of  twenty  thousand  Rus 
sian  troops,  and  the  British  government  began  preparing  to  for 
ward  them  to  America.  They  were  to  be  engaged  for  two  years. 
Seven  pounds  sterling  would  be  paid  for  each  man,  half  down 
and  half  on  embarkation.  In  addition  England  would,  if  re 
quired,  pay  a  subsidy  to  Russia.  Expense  was  no  object.  Eng 
land  wanted  the  troops  and  would  pay  whatever  was  necessary 
for  them.  But  before  the  instructions  to  this  effect  reached 
Gunning,  the  empress  one  day  asked  him  if  his  government  had 
made  any  progress  toward  settling  the  American  trouble.  With 
out  waiting  for  him  to  reply  she  continued :  ' '  For  God 's  sake, 
put  an  end  to  it  as  soon  as  possible,  and  do  not  confine  your 
selves  to  one  method  of  accomplishing  it.  There  are  other  means 
than  force  of  arms,  and  they  ought  all  to  be  tried."  Poor  Gun 
ning,  much  taken  aback,  replied  that  his  master  was  doing  all  he 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  55 

could  consistently  with  his  dignity  and  sovereignty.  The  em 
press  again  repeated  her  hope  that  England  and  America  would 
soon  come  to  terms,  and  the  interview  ended,  with  Gunning  feel 
ing  particularly  uncomfortable. 

When  Gunning's  instructions  and  the  letter  from  George  III 
to  Catherine  arrived,  the  empress  had  gone  into  a  religious  "  re 
treat"  for  a  few  days.  Gunning  consulted  with  Panin,  who  was 
noncommittal  but  let  the  Englishman  continue  in  his  belief  that 
help  would  be  given.  When  the  empress  was  again  accessible, 
on  September  30,  Gunning  presented  the  king's  letter  to  Panin, 
who  laid  it  before  her.  Catherine  expressed  herself  through 
Panin  in  reply  as  much  moved  by  George's  friendly  expressions. 
She  declared  that  her  friendship  for  him  was  no  less  warm.  But 
she  greatly  disliked  to  have  her  troops  employed  in  America. 
She  asked  if  he  could  not  get  Hanoverians  instead.  Gunning 
argued  at  much  length  and  with  much  earnestness,  conjuring 
Panin,  by  his  regard  for  the  honor  of  his  sovereign,  to  reflect  on 
the  light  in  which  a  refusal  of  aid  would  be  looked  upon  not 
only  by  Great  Britain  but  also  by  all  Europe,  and  the  effect 
which  it  might  have  upon  some  of  them.  He  even  abated  his  re 
quest,  saying  that  he  would  be  content  with  only  fifteen  thousand 
men.  Panin  remained  inscrutable,  and  reported  the  matter  to 
Catherine,  who  avoided  seeing  Gunning.  In  the  imperial  coun 
cil,  however,  the  subject  was  much  discussed.  Catherine  evi 
dently  wanted  to  oblige  the  king  if  possible,  but  saw  many  ob 
jections  to  doing  so  in  the  way  which  Gunning  had  asked.  The 
divisions  in  Poland,  the  hostility  of  Sweden,  and  the  weakened 
condition  of  her  army,  made  it  seem  inexpedient  to  send  troops 
to  America.  Besides,  it  might  offend  some  other  European  pow 
ers,  it  would  probably  engender  discontent  among  her  own  sub 
jects,  and  her  minister  to  England  assured  her  that  it  would 
alienate  the  English  people,  who  by  no  means  approved  the  pol 
icy  of  their  government  toward  America. 

The  end  of  the  matter  was  that  she  presently  dictated  to  her 
secretary  a  letter  to  King  George  in  reply  to  the  one  which  he 
had  written  to  her  with  his  own  hand.  She  told  him  that  her 
empire  needed  peace,  and  her  army  rest;  that  it  would  be  im 
proper  to  employ  her  troops  at  the  other  side  of  the  world  and 
beyond  her  own  reach ;  that  affairs  in  Poland  and  Sweden  made 


56  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

it  inexpedient  to  weaken  her  army;  and  that,  finally,  it  would 
be  unworthy  of  her  dignity  and  his,  and  of  the  dignities  of  the 
two  monarchies  and  nations,  to  unite  their  forces  "simply  to 
calm  a  rebellion  which  is  not  supported  by  any  foreign  power." 
When  in  December  Gunning  returned  to  England,  the  empress 
took  leave  of  him  in  a  most  cordial  manner,  and  repeated  her 
assurances  of  affection  for  the  king  and  her  readiness  to  aid  him 
in  any  way  possible  and  at  any  time;  "but,"  she  added,  "one 
cannot  go  beyond  one's  power." 

"We  have  reviewed  this  episode  at  such  length  to  show  as  cer 
tainly  as  possible  the  real  attitude  of  Russia  at  that  time.  It 
seems  evident  that  she  was  inclined  toward  friendly  relations 
with  England,  and  was  willing  to  go  to  a  considerable  length  in 
cultivating  them.  It  does  not  appear  that  she — Russia  as  a 
whole,  the  Government,  the  empress,  or  any  of  her  ministers — 
cherished  the  slightest  sympathy  with  America.  On  the  con 
trary,  Russian  sympathy  was  doubtless  on  the  side  of  the  Brit 
ish  government.  The  most  autocratic  Government  in  the  world 
could  scarcely  have  helped  sympathizing  with  autocracy  in  its 
attempt  to  suppress  democracy.  There  is  not  a  word  or  a  hint 
in  Catherine's  final  letter  of  refusal  that  is  expressive  of  regard 
for  the  American  cause.  To  assume,  therefore,  that  Russia  was 
a  friend  of  America  at  that  time  would  be  utterly  extravagant 
and  unwarranted.  She  was  England's  friend,  and,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  she  made  that  fact  unmistakably  evident  before 
the  end  of  the  Revolution. 

Baffled  in  the  effort  to  get  mercenaries  from  Russia,  the  Brit 
ish  government  turned  next  to  Holland.  We  are  told  that  the 
House  of  Orange  was  inclined  to  accede  to  the  request.  It  would 
have  loaned  the  so-called  Scottish  Brigade,  which  originally  con 
sisted  of  Scotsmen  but  was  by  this  time  made  up  chiefly  of  Wal 
loons  and  deserters  from  various  lands.  But  the  House  of 
Orange  was  not  the  autocrat  of  Holland.  The  States  General 
was  in  power,  and  that  body  referred  the  matter  to  the  provincial 
assemblies.  Those  of  Zeeland  and  Utrecht  gave  their  consent 
to  the  scheme,  but  the  others  refused.  The  dominant  sentiment 
of  the  nation  was  expressed  by  John  Derk,  of  Chapelle,  who 
urged  that  it  was  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  republic  to  inter 
meddle  in  the  affairs  of  a  foreign  nation,  for  pay ;  that  Holland 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  57 

was  too  weak  as  a  military  power  and  too  great  as  a  commercial 
power  for  it  to  be  prudent  for  her  thus  to  take  part  in  the  quar 
rels  of  others ;  and  that,  if  she  helped  England  against  America, 
France  might  aid  America  against  England  and  thus  become 
hostile  to  Holland,  so  that  the  latter  country  would  be  involved 
in  a  serious  war.  He  also  dwelt  upon  the  alleged  tyranny  of 
England  upon  the  sea  and  the  wrongs  inflicted  by  her  upon 
Dutch  commerce.  Finally  he  argued  that  the  Americans  were 
contending  for  liberty  very  much  as  the  Dutch  had  formerly  con 
tended  for  it  against  Spain,  and  that  they  were  entitled  to  the 
sympathy  of  Holland.  These  views  prevailed,  and  the  States 
General  refused  the  English  request.  It  may  be  added  that  this 
honorable  attitude  was  taken  by  Holland  entirely  without  influ 
ence  from  outside.  America  had  made  no  advances  to  her  at 
that  time.  The  conduct  of  Holland  a  few  years  later  makes  it 
seem  probable  that  the  refusal  to  lend  troops  was  to  a  consider 
able  degree  connected  with  a  certain  incipient  sympathy  with 
the  Americans.  Dutchmen  asked  themselves  and  each  other 
why  they,  whose  fathers  had  been  called  rebels  and  had  freed 
themselves  through  a  long  and  desperate  struggle,  should  lend 
their  troops  for  the  suppression  of  similar  ' '  rebels ' '  engaged  in  a 
similar  struggle  for  freedom.  To  make  the  refusal  the  more 
pointed,  while  at  the  same  time  avoiding  the  appearance  of  dis 
courtesy  to  an  old  friend,  the  States  General  offered  to  send 
troops  to  England's  aid  in  any  European  war,  but  positively  re 
fused  to  let  a  man  go  across  the  sea !  That  is  to  say,  they  were 
friendly  to  England,  but  they  would  not  be  hostile  to  Amer 
ica. 

Thus  rebuffed 'a  second  time,  King  George  made  a  third  at 
tempt  to  hire  troops,  and  this  time  was  successful.  The  attempt 
was  made  in  Germany,  where  many  of  the  smaller  States  had 
never  recovered  from  the  demoralization  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  and  where  mercenary  military  service  was  a  common  trade. 
He  found  several  petty  princes  who  were  eager  to  hire  him 
troops.  They  needed  no  persuasion.  They  regarded  it  as  a 
favor  to  them  for  him  to  accept  the  soldiers  they  offered.  Some 
of  these  princelings  were  actuated  by  nothing  more  than  a  de 
sire  to  get  money.  They  sold  troops  as  they  would  have  sold 
fat  cattle.  Others  were  fanatics  in  the  cause  of  autocracy. 


58  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

(Your  petty  tyrant  is  usually  the  greatest  stickler  for  the  divine 
right  of  kings!)  Still  others  were  eager  to  curry  favor  with 
England  with  an  eye  to  future  advantage.  As  for  the  men,  some 
of  them  went  gladly,  as  adventurers  and  soldiers  of  fortune,  care 
less  whom  they  fought.  Many  of  them  went  reluctantly,  having 
heard  of  America's  struggle  for  freedom  and  sympathizing  with 
it,  inasmuch  as  they  felt  the  need  of  more  freedom  at  home. 
Many  of  these  deserted  and  joined  the  American  army  at  their 
first  opportunity.  It  does  not  appear  that  any  of  the  soldiers 
were  actuated  by  animosity  toward  America.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  probable  that  among  the  people  of  Germany,  so  far  as  any 
accurate  knowledge  of  America  extended,  there  was  a  sympa 
thetic  feeling  for  this  country. 

What,  meantime,  was  the  popular  feeling  in  England?  It 
had  begun  to  make  itself  known  in  unmistakable  fashion.  There 
was  a  strong  reaction  from  the  animosity  against  America  which 
Franklin  had  observed  a  year  or  two  before.  Englishmen  began 
to  realize  that  their  own  struggle  for  popular  rights  was  being 
fought  on  American  soil  by  their  American  brethren.  Chatham, 
Camden,  Barre,  and  others  of  their  best  statesmen  steadily  up 
held  the  American  cause  in  Parliament.  In  August,  1775,  the 
king  issued  a  proclamation  on  the  American  rebellion  containing 
this  amazing  statement:  " There  is  reason  to  apprehend  that 
such  rebellion  hath  been  much  promoted  and  encouraged  by  the 
traitorous  correspondence,  counsels,  and  comfort  of  divers 
wicked  and  desperate  persons  within  our  realm" — to  wit,  Chat 
ham,  Camden,  Barre,  and  the  rest! — and  his  purpose  was  de 
clared  "to  bring  to  condign  punishment  the  authors,  perpetrat 
ors,  and  abettors  of  such  traitorous  designs."  Many  British 
officers  refused  to  serve  against  America,  preferring  to  resign 
their  commissions.  Among  these  were  the  eldest  son  of  Lord 
Chatham,  who  had  begun  a  most  promising  military  career;  Ad 
miral  Keppel,  Lieutenant-General  Sir  Jeffrey  Amherst,  General 
Conway,  afterward  a  field-marshal ;  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish ; 
and  the  Earl  of  Effingham,  who  was  commended  for  his  act  by 
the  city  corporations  of  London  and  Dublin  in  public  addresses. 
Not  one  of  these  men  was  ostracized  socially  for  such  manifesta 
tions  of  sympathy  with  America;  a  fact  which  shows  pretty 
clearly  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  English  nation,  including 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  59 

much  of  the  aristocracy,  at  heart  took  the  American  side  of  the 
quarrel,  and  that  the  oppression  of  the  colonies  was  the  act  not 
of  the  English  nation  but  of  a  small  clique  of  its  rulers.  Nor 
was  the  conduct  of  the  City  of  London  void  of  much  significance. 
Hitherto  it  had  been  a  center  of  warlike  spirit  and  of  hearty 
support  of  the  Government.  Now  it  became  sullen  and  disaf 
fected.  The  corporation  applauded  Effingham  for  refusing  to 
fight  America.  Its  members  of  Parliament  voted  from  first  to 
last  against  the  war.  Its  money  market  let  the  price  of  govern 
ment  bonds  fall,  and  showed  by  the  fluctuations  of  stocks  in  gen 
eral  its  sympathy  with  America  and  its  disapproval  of  the  pol 
icy  of  the  British  government.  As  for  the  common  people 
throughout  the  kingdom,  it  is  sufficient  to  remember  that  it  was 
their  unwillingness  to  enlist  in  the  army  to  fight  America  that 
drove  the  king  to  seek  mercenaries  abroad. 

It  will  be  profitable  at  this  point,  and  it  will  throw  an  instruc 
tive  light  upon  what  we  may  call  the  popular  foreign  relations 
of  the  country,  to  consider  who  were,  in  the  main,  the  American 
revolutionists.  Upon  this  point  there  has  been  much  dispute, 
and  some  amazing  contentions  have  been  made.  We  have  been 
told,  for  example,  that  the  masses  of  Americans  of  direct  Eng 
lish  origin  were  not  in  sympathy  with  the  Revolution,  but  re 
mained  loyal  to  the  king,  and  that  the  real  leaders  of  the  Revo 
lution  in  both  civil  and  military  life  were  non-English — accord 
ing  to  some  authorities,  chiefly  Irish.  It  is,  of  course,  impos 
sible  to  determine,  in  the  absence  of  a  census,  just  what  pro 
portion  of  the  American  patriots  were  of  English  and  what 
of  non-English  origin.  But  some  general  facts  are  known,  which 
controvert  the  pretensions  which  we  have  quoted.  One  is  that 
the  chief  colonies  were  founded  and  settled  almost  entirely  by 
Englishmen;  with  the  exception  of  New  York,  which  was  of 
Dutch  origin,  but  into  which  long  before  the  Revolution  there 
had  come  an  English  influx  greater  than  the  Dutch.  As  for 
the  Irish,  there  were  few  of  them  in  America  at  that  time,  ex 
cepting  those  who  had  come  under  compulsion  in  Cromwell's 
day.  Ireland  was  not  yet  united  to  Great  Britain,  and  the  great 
flood  of  emigration  from  that  country  had  not  begun.  Apart 
from  Cromwell's  exiles,  most  of  the  Irish  in  America  were  from 
the  north  of  that  island,  and  were  really  Scotch,  who  had  been 


60  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

settled  in  Ireland  for  only  a  generation  or  two  before  coming 
hither. 

So  much  for  what  is  known  in  a  general  way  of  the  masses  of 
the  American  people.  Still  more  explicit  and  certain  is  our 
knowledge  of  the  leaders  in  the  Revolution,  and  at  least  equally 
significant  is  it.  Let  us  begin  with  the  signers  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence.  All  but  eight  of  them  were  natives  of  the 
colonies.  Of  the  eight  foreign-born,  two,  Robert  Morris  of  Penn 
sylvania  and  Button  Gwinnett  of  Georgia,  were  born  in  Eng 
land  ;  one,  Francis  Lewis  of  New  York,  was  born  in  Wales ;  two, 
James  Wilson  of  Pennsylvania  and  John  Witherspoon  of  New 
Jersey,  were  born  in  Scotland;  and  three,  James  Smith  and 
George  Taylor  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Matthew  Thornton  of  New 
Hampshire,  were  born  in  Ireland,  though  not  one  of  them  bore  a 
characteristically  Irish  name.  If  we  turn  to  the  army,  we  find 
most  of  the  prominent  officers  of  American  birth  and  English 
ancestry.  Such  were  Washington,  whose  family  was  conspicu 
ous  among  the  English  gentry ;  Greene,  of  English  Quaker  stock ; 
Wayne,  of  Yorkshire  ancestry,  grandson  of  an  English  com 
mander  at  the  Boyne;  Harry  Lee,  whose  forefathers  came  from 
Shropshire;  Artemas  Ward,  Mifflin,  Warren,  and  others.  Mor 
gan  was  of  Welsh,  Muhlenberg  of  German,  Schuyler  and  Freling- 
huysen  of  Dutch,  and  Sullivan  of  Irish  ancestry.  Of  those  who 
were  foreign-born,  the  gallant  Montgomery  was  Irish,  St.  Clair 
was  Scotch,  as  was  also  Paul  Jones,  the  founder  of  our  navy; 
the  traitor  Charles  Lee  and  the  semi-traitor  Gates  were  English. 
Lafayette  was  French,  and  Steuben  and  De  Kalb  were  German. 

In  civil  councils,  the  predominance  of  Englishmen,  born  in 
America,  was  still  more  marked.  The  Adamses  were  from  Dev 
onshire,  true  ' '  dogs  of  Devon. ' '  Franklin 's  ancestors  came  from 
Northamptonshire,  and  Otis's  from  Norfolk.  Lewis  Morris  and 
Gouverneur  Morris  were  descended  from  one  of  Cromwell's 
11  Ironsides, "  and  so  was  Rush.  Rodney  boasted  an  English 
line  unbroken  from  the  days  of  Queen  Maud.  Others  of  pure 
English  origin  were  Hancock,  Sherman,  Gerry,  R.  H.  Lee,  Ran 
dolph,  Pendleton,  Page,  R.  T.  Paine,  Harrison,  Drayton,  Ells 
worth,  Clinton,  Dayton,  Stockton,  Clymer,  Shippen,  Bedford, 
Dickinson,  and  Madison.  Jefferson  was  of  English  and  Welsh 
extraction.  Livingston,  Monroe,  and  John  F.  Mercer  were  de- 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  61 

scended  from  Scotch  forebears.  Carroll  was  Irish,  and  so  was 
Rutledge,  though  the  latter  came  from  north  of  Ireland  stock  in 
which  Scotch  blood  predominated.  Jay,  Laurens,  and  Boudi- 
not  were  of  French  Huguenot  ancestry.  As  for  the  foreign- 
born,  Hamilton  was  a  native  of  a  West  India  island  and  was 
of  Scotch  and  French  Huguenot  parentage;  Hugh  Mercer  came 
from  Scotland ;  the  Tuckers  were  Englishmen  born  in  Bermuda ; 
and  Thomas  Paine  and  Robert  Morris  were  natives  of  England. 
Thus  if  we  may  judge  ex  pede — or  rather  ex  capite — Herculem, 
there  can  be  little  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  American  Revo 
lution  was  chiefly  the  work  of  men  of  British  blood,  of  whom  the 
majority  were  born  in  the  colonies.  The  bearing  of  this  fact 
upon  the  popular  feeling  between  America  and  England  is  ob 
vious  ;  nor  is  it  much  less  marked  upon  American  relations  with 
other  lands.  The  dominant  fact  was  that  the  Americans  be 
longed  to  the  English  race,  and  whatever  racial  sympathy  there 
was,  therefore,  was  between  America  and  England  rather  than 
between  America  and  any  other  land. 

Such  was  the  Continental  Congress  which  reassembled  for 
fateful  work  in  the  fall  of  1775,  a  body  of  which  Lord  Chatham 
declared  that  its  members  had  never  been  surpassed  by  those  of 
any  similar  body  "in  solidity  of  reasoning,  force  of  sagacity, 
and  wisdom  of  conclusion. ' '  Such,  too,  was  the  nation  of  which 
that  Congress  was  representative.  The  spirit  of  Congress  to 
ward  Great  Britain  was  what  might  have  been  expected.  We 
have  seen  that  down  to  the  adjournment  in  August,  despite  the 
actual  state  of  war  that  existed,  there  was  practically  no  thought 
of  secession,  save  on  the  part  of  a  few  members  who  kept  their 
thoughts  secret.  But  in  November,  1775,  the  progress  of  events 
became  irresistible.  The  struggle  with  Great  Britain  became  so 
severe  as  to  compel  America  to  look  to  other  lands  for  aid.  Why 
not,  since  England  was  seeking  mercenaries  upon  the  Continent  ? 
Accordingly,  Samuel  Chase  of  Maryland,  after  careful  and  pro 
longed  consultation  with  John  Adams,  moved  in  Congress  that 
ambassadors  be  sent  to  France.  The  motion  was  seconded  by 
Adams,  who  wrote  that  it  was  evidently  an  unwelcome  surprise 
to  the  majority  of  Congress,  and  that  "the  grimaces,  the  agita 
tion,  and  convulsions"  with  which  it  was  received  "were  very 
great."  A  long  debate  followed,  and  in  the  end  the  motion 


62  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

failed  to  pass.  Instead,  Samuel  Adams's  old  system  of  commit 
tees  of  correspondence  was  taken  up  and  enlarged  upon.  It  is 
true  that  there  were  those  in  Congress  who  heartily  favored 
Chase's  motion,  and  some  who  would  have  gone  even  further 
than  he  suggested.  Patrick  Henry  was  for  alliances  with  France 
and  other  powers,  even  if  they  had  to  be  purchased  with  conces 
sions  and  territory;  a  policy  which  would  have  been  most  mis 
chievous  had  it  been  adopted.  John  Adams's  policy  was  the 
wiser.  He  wanted  no  alliance,  but  only  commercial  treaties,  con 
sistently  urging  that  America  should  be  kept  separated  as  widely 
as  possible  from  European  politics  and  wars. 

The  result  of  this  debate,  we  have  said,  was  the  appointment 
of  a  committee  of  correspondence.  It  was  a  committee  whose 
work  should  be  conducted  in  secret,  and  it  was  instructed  to  en 
ter  into  communication  with  our  friends  in  Great  Britain,  Ire 
land,  and  other  parts  of  the  "world."  Practically,  it  was  the 
foundation  of  the  American  State  Department,  or  Ministry  for 
Foreign  Affairs.  Its  members  were  Jay,  Franklin,  Harrison, 
Johnson,  and  Dickinson.  Thus  it  included  representatives  of  all 
shades  of  thought  in  Congress,  and  one  of  the  very  youngest 
members — Jay,  only  thirty  years  old — and  one  of  the  oldest — 
Franklin,  just  entering  his  seventieth  year.  Jay  seems  to  have 
been  the  most  active  and  dominant  member  of  the  committee. 
He  had  various  interviews  with  Bonvouloir,  the  first  of  the  secret 
emissaries  of  France  to  this  country,  but  nothing  practical  re 
sulted  from  them.  The  ill-starred  Silas  Deane  was,  it  is  true, 
presently  selected  as  the  first  American  envoy  to  France,  to 
which  country  he  proceeded  in  June,  1776,  and  of  whose  un 
happy  doings  there  we  shall  hear  more.  There  were  also  some 
tentative  negotiations  with  Canada,  which  came  to  nothing.  The 
fact  was  that  foreign  negotiations  in  advance  of  independence 
were  an  anomaly  which  could  result  in  little  if  any  good. 

This  fact  soon  dawned  upon  the  minds  of  Congress,  and  the 
design  of  independence  began  to  take  form.  Once  begun,  the 
process  was  rapid.  The  first  definite  step  was  taken  by  a  com 
mittee  composed  of  John  Adams,  Edward  Rutledge,  and  Richard 
Henry  Lee,  representing  respectively  Massachusetts,  South 
Carolina,  and  Virginia.  They  reported  on  May  15,  1776,  a  pre 
amble  and  resolutions  which  declared  that  the  king  had  excluded 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  63 

the  inhabitants  of  these  United  Colonies  from  the  protection  of 
his  crown ;  that  the  whole  force  of  his  kingdom,  aided  by  foreign 
mercenaries,  was  being  exerted  for  the  destruction  of  the  good 
people  of  these  colonies ;  that  it  was  irreconcilable  to  reason  and 
conscience  for  the  colonists  now  to  take  oaths  and  affirmations 
for  the  support  of  any  government  under  the  crown  of  Great 
Britain ;  that  it  was  necessary  that  every  kind  of  authority  under 
the  crown  should  be  totally  suppressed,  and  that  all  the  powers 
of  government  should  be  exerted  under  the  authority  of  the  peo- 
P£  of  the  colonies.  That  was  the  first  actual  Declaration  of  In 
dependence.  The  adoption  of  it  inevitably  involved  the  further 
step  of  formally  declaring  independence  to  be  a  fact.  This  was 
recognized  by  the  moderate  element  in  Congress,  which  was  not 
yet  prepared  for  so  radical  a  step,  and  the  proposition  was  ear 
nestly  opposed.  But  the  tide  was  rising  rapidly,  and  too  strongly 
to  be  restrained.  Adams's  trenchant  proposal — for  it  was 
framed  by  him — was  adopted  by  Congress.  More  than  that,  it 
was  approved  by  the  people  of  the  colonies,  and  various  colonial 
assemblies  adopted  resolutions  looking  to  the  same  effect.  Vir 
ginia,  notably,  instructed  her  delegates  to  the  Congress  to  move 
for  a  formal  declaration  that  the  United  Colonies  were  ''free  and 
independent  States."  It  was  in  accordance  with  these  instruc 
tions  that  Richard  Henry  Lee,  who  had  been  Adams's  colleague 
in  the  action  of  May  15,  on  June  7  moved  for  a  Declaration  of 
Independence.  His  motion  was  seconded  by  John  Adams. 
After  three  days'  debate  it  became  evident  that,  as  Jefferson 
said,  certain  of  the  colonies  were  ''not  yet  matured  for  falling 
from  the  parent  stem,"  though  "they  were  fast  advancing  to 
that  state."  Accordingly  the  matter  was  postponed  until  July 
1,  in  order  to  give  time  for  securing  entire  unanimity.  Mean 
time,  on  June  11,  Congress  appointed  Thomas  Jefferson,  John 
Adams,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Roger  Sherman,  and  Robert  R.  Liv 
ingston  a  committee  to  draft  the  Declaration,  ready  for  adoption 
when  the  subject  should  again  be  taken  up. 

There  is  no  more  familiar  fact  in  American  history  than  that 
Jefferson  wrote  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  is  quite 
true.  The  original  draft  of  that  document  shows  it  to  be  in  his 
handwriting,  with  only  three  trifling  changes  in  the  hands  of 
Adams  and  Franklin.  Indeed,  it  is  reasonable  to  believe  that 


64  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Jefferson  was  appointed  to  the  committee  because  of  his  readiness 
and  sententiousness  of  speech.  Lee,  as  the  mover  of  the  resolu 
tion,  should  according  to  all  parliamentary  practice  have  been 
made  chairman  of  the  committee,  yet  he  was  not  made  even  a 
member  of  it.  That  was  because  he  and  Jefferson  were  both 
from  Virginia,  and  it  would  not  do  to  appoint  two  members  from 
one  colony.  Therefore  if  Jefferson  was  to  be  a  member,  for  the 
sake  of  his  ability  as  a  writer,  Lee  had  to  be  left  off.  Besides, 
it  has  been  explained,  Jefferson,  who  was  still  a  young  man,  had 
at  that  time  not  a  single  enemy  in  Congress,  while  there  was  a 
strong  faction  opposed  to  Lee.  All  that,  however,  is  by  the  way. 
The  point  of  present  interest  is  that  the  Congress  itself  in  one 
respect  materially  amended  the  Declaration  as  drafted  by  Jeffer 
son  and  reported  by  the  committee.  Jefferson,  despite  his  decla 
ration  of  a  few  months  before  of  his  love  of  union  with  Great 
Britain,  wrote  in  the  Declaration  that  the  policy  of  the  British 
government  must  "bid  us  renounce  forever  these  unfeeling 
brethren/'  and  must  make  us  "endeavor  to  forget  our  former 
love  for  them."  But  this  passage  was  stricken  out  by  Con 
gress,  in  order  not  to  reflect  upon  or  stir  up  animosities  against 
the  English  people.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  this  Con 
gress  was  wiser  than  Jefferson.  The  American  quarrel  was 
not  with  the  English  people,  but  with  the  Government.  The 
adoption  of  Jefferson 's  words  would  have  represented  the  matter 
incorrectly,  and  would  also  have  alienated  from  America  the 
sympathies  of  a  large  portion  of  the  British  nation,  sympathies 
which  were  of  inestimable  value  and  practical  service  to  us  dur 
ing  the  war  and  at  its  close.  So  the  amended  Declaration  was 
finally  adopted  on  July  4,  1776,  without  any  expression  of  en 
mity  for  the  British  people,  but  with  the  simple  statement  that 
thereafter  we  should  hold  them  as  we  held  the  rest  of  mankind, 
"enemies  in  war,  in  peace  friends." 

Meantime,  while  America  and  Great  Britain  were  thus  com 
porting  themselves  toward  each  other,  what  of  France,  whose 
emissaries  had  been  so  eager  and  diligent  in  provoking  strife  be 
tween  these  two  and  in  suggesting  French  assistance  for  the 
colonies?  On  May  10,  1774,  the  young  and  amiable  Louis  XVI 
had  succeeded  his  grandfather  upon  the  throne.  His  minister 
of  state,  a  sort  of  self-appointed  prime  minister,  was  the  Count 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  65 

de  Maurepas.  His  minister  for  foreign  affairs,  who  presently 
became  all  powerful,  was  the  Count  de  Vergennes,  a  man  of 
ability,  who  was  sincerely  devoted  to  France  according  to  his 
conception  of  her  welfare,  and  who  was  devoid  of  a  single  spark 
of  generous  feeling  for  any  other  country.  His  minister  of 
finance,  for  a  short  time  only,  was  Turgot,  a  reformer  and  phi 
losopher,  and  one  of  the  most  benevolent  and  generally  estimable 
French  statesmen  of  his  day.  France  was  at  that  time  at  peace 
with  Great  Britain,  and  maintained  an  ambassador  at  the  Brit 
ish  court.  The  latter,  M.  de  Guines,  was  a  close  observer  of  the 
progress  of  the  quarrel  between  the  king  and  his  colonies.  He 
regarded  the  policy  of  the  king  and  his  ministers  as  fatuous. 
"These  people,"  he  wrote,  "appear  to  me  in  a  delirium."  He 
was  convinced  that  they  coud  not  subdue  the  rising  rebellion  in 
the  colonies,  but  believed  that  they  would  wage  a  war  of  mere 
devastation.  "You  may  be  sure,"  he  wrote,  "the  plan  of  these 
people  is  to  force  back  America  fifty  years,  if  they  cannot  sub 
due  it."  Vergennes  could  not  believe  that  the  British  govern 
ment  would  be  so  mad  as  to  refuse  conciliation  with  the  colonies, 
and  wrote  to  De  Guines  for  further  information,  especially  ask 
ing  why  he  thought  there  would  be  no  friendly  settlement.  De 
Guines,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  judicious  observer,  replied 
that  further  negotiations  were  impossible.  The  ministry  could 
yield  nothing  to  the  Americans.  The  king  was  as  feeble  and  as 
obstinate  as  Charles  I  had  been  in  his  fatal  quarrel  with  Parlia 
ment.  This  representation  of  the  case  convinced  Vergennes, 
and  he  acknowledged  the  fact.  "America  or  the  ministers  them 
selves,"  he  said,  "must  succumb."  At  the  same  time  Vergennes 
sent  Bonvouloir,  a  trusted  agent,  to  America,  to  get  and  report 
all  possible  information.  Bonvouloir  had  already  spent  much 
time  here,  and  was  well  acquainted  with  the  American  leaders. 
His  reports  to  Vergennes  corroborated  those  of  De  Guines,  and 
fully  convinced  the  French  government  that  the  breach  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  colonies  was  irremediable. 

The  French  government,  however,  made  no  move  toward  aid 
ing  the  colonies  in  the  struggle  which  it  had  encouraged  them 
to  begin.  Louis  XVI  had  no  inclination  to  do  so.  Neither 
principle  nor  sentiment  impelled  him  to  help  the  Americans. 
On  the  contrary,  his  natural  feelings  were  altogether  against  any 

VOL.    1—5 


66  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

such  democratic  movement  as  that  which  they  were  undertak 
ing.  At  the  same  time  he  was  partly  afraid  of  England,  and 
partly  desirous  of  crippling  her  political  and  commercial  power, 
and  in  these  passions  he  was  by  no  means  discouraged  by  his 
ministers.  On  August  7,  1775,  Vergennes  told  De  Guines  that 
Louis  approved  the  sending  of  Bonvouloir  to  America,  partly  to 
obtain  and  report  information,  and  partly,  perhaps  chiefly,  "to 
secure  the  Americans  against  that  jealousy  of  us  with  which  so 
much  pains  will  be  taken  to  inspire  them."  The  Americans 
were  to  be  persuaded  that  France  had  no  notion  or  desire  of 
regaining  Canada,  and  that  France  would  welcome  their  inde 
pendence  and  do  all  within  her  power  to  promote  their  prosper 
ity.  Botta,  in  his  admirable  "History  of  the  American  War," 
says  of  the  attitude  of  France  in  1775  and  the  early  part  of 
1776:  "She  would  not  throw  off  the  mask  in  these  beginnings, 
either  because  she  feared  that  by  prematurely  engaging  in  the 
defense  of  the  Americans  the  English  government  might  be  in 
duced  to  offer  them  such  terms  of  accommodation  as,  in  recon 
ciling  the  two  parties,  would  turn  their  united  forces  against 
her;  or  especially  because  she  was  not  yet  entirely  prepared  for 
maritime  war.  She  wished  to  temporize  until  her  armaments 
were  completed,  and  until  the  continuation  of  reciprocal  out 
rages  should  have  rendered  all  arrangements  impossible." 

This  view  of  the  case  is  supported  by  the  reports  of  Bonvou 
loir,  who  in  March,  1776,  wrote  to  Vergennes:  "The  position 
of  England  toward  its  colonies  in  North  America,  and  the  pos 
sible  and  probable  consequences  of  the  contest,  whatever  its  is 
sue  may  be,  have  beyond  a  doubt  every  claim  to  the  most  serious 
attention  of  France  and  Spain.  Whether  they  should  desire  the 
subjection  or  the  independence  of  the  English  colonies,  is  proble 
matical;  on  either  hypothesis  they  are  menaced  with  danger, 
which  human  forecast  can  perhaps  neither  prevent  nor  turn 
aside.  If  the  continuation  of  the  civil  war  may  be  regarded  as 
indefinitely  advantageous  to  the  two  crowns,  inasmuch  as  it  will 
exhaust  the  victors  and  the  vanquished,  there  is  on  the  other 
hand  room  to  fear,  first,  that  the  English  ministry,  feeling  the 
insufficiency  of  its  means,  may  stretch  out  the  hand  of  concilia 
tion;  or,  secondly,  that  the  King  of  England,  after  conquering 
English  America,  may  use  it  as  an  instrument  to  subjugate  Euro- 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  67 

pean  England ;  or  thirdly,  that  the  English  ministry,  beaten  on 
the  continent  of  America,  may  seek  indemnity  at  the  expense 
of  France  and  Spain,  to  efface  their  shame  and  to  conciliate  the 
insurgents  by  offering  them  the  commerce  and  supply  of  the 
isles;  or,  fourthly,  that  the  colonists,  on  attaining  independence, 
may  become  conquerors  from  necessity,  and  by  forcing  their 
excess  product  upon  Spanish  America,  destroy  the  ties  which 
bind  our  colonies  to  their  metropolis."  He  further  suggested 
that  the  British  ministry  might  any  day  resign,  that  Chatham 
and  his  friends  might  return  to  office  and  make  peace  with 
America,  and  that  England  and  America  united  might  proceed 
to  the  conquest  of  Mexico  and  the  waging  of  a  war  with  France. 
"In  the  midst  of  so  many  perils,"  he  continued,  "the  strong  love 
of  peace,  which  is  the  preference  of  the  king  and  the  King  of 
Spain,  seems  to  prescribe  the  most  measured  courses.  .  .  .  Care 
must  be  taken  to  avoid  being  compromised,  and  not  to  provoke 

the  ills  which  it  is  wished  to  prevent The  continuance 

of  the  war  for  at  least  one  year  is  desirable  for  the  two  crowns. 
To  that  end  the  British  ministry  must  be  maintained  in  the 
persuasion  that  France  and  Spain  are  pacific,  so  that  it  may  not 
fear  to  embark  in  an  active  and  costly  campaign;  whilst  on  the 
other  hand  the  courage  of  the  Americans  might  be  kept  up  by 
secret  favors  and  vague  hopes,  which  would  prevent  an  ac 
commodation  and  assist  to  develop  ideas  of  independence.  .  .  . 
We  ought  to  continue  with  dexterity  to  tranquilize  the  English 
ministry  as  to  the  intentions  of  France  and  Spain.  It  will  also 
be  proper  to  extend  to  the  insurgents  secret  aid  in  military 
stores  and  money,  without  seeking  any  return  for  it  beyond  the 
political  object  of  the  moment;  but  it  would  not  comport  with 
the  dignity  or  interest  of  the  king  to  treat  with  the  insurgents, 
till  the  liberty  of  English  America  shall  have  acquired  con 
sistency.  ' ' 

Such  were  the  counsels  of  this  trusted  agent  of  the  French 
government,  which  were  offered  for  the  mature  deliberation  of 
the  king  and  his  ministers,  and  which  Vergennes  appears  to  have 
approved.  It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  any  policy  more  self 
ish,  cold-blooded,  and  cynical.  It  proposed  in  effect  that  France 
should  play  the  part  of  lago.  We  can  perceive  in  it  not  one 
trace  of  sympathy  with  the  American  struggle  for  liberty,  and 


68  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

not  a  hint  of  a  desire  for  the  welfare  of  the  colonists.  On  the 
contrary,  the  latter  were  to  be  used  as  a  mere  pawn  in  the  game 
of  France  against  Great  Britain,  and  were  to  be  sacrificed  ruth 
lessly,  without  the  slightest  compunction,  whenever  it  might  be 
to  the  interest  of  France  thus  to  do.  A  far  different  view,  and 
a  far  more  creditable  one,  was  taken  by  Turgot,  the  French  re 
forming  statesman,  whose  counsel  the  king  sought  immediately 
after  receiving  this  memorial  from  Bonvouloir.  Turgot  was  con 
vinced  that  the  Americans  would  be  successful  in  establishing 
their  independence,  and  he  sincerely  desired  that  they  should 
do  so,  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  injuring  Great  Britain,  but  for 
the  sake  of  promoting  the  general  welfare  of  humanity.  "The 
present  war,"  he  wrote  to  the  king,  "will  probably  end  in  the 
absolute  independence  of  the  colonies,  and  that  event  will  cer 
tainly  be  the  epoch  of  the  greatest  revolution  in  the  commerce 
and  politics  not  only  of  England  but  of  all  Europe.  From  the 
prudent  conduct,  the  courage,  and  intelligence  of  the  Americans, 
we  may  augur  that  they  will  take  care,  above  all  things,  to  give 
a  solid  form  to  their  government,  and  as  a  consequence  they 
will  love  peace  and  seek  to  preserve  it.  The  rising  republic  will 
have  no  need  of  conquests  to  find  a  market  for  its  products;  it 
will  have  only  to  open  its  harbors  to  all  nations.  Sooner  or  later, 
with  good  will  or  from  necessity,  all  European  nations  which 
have  colonies  will  be  obliged  to  leave  them  an  entire  liberty  of 
trade.  .  .  .  When  the  English  themselves  shall  recognize  the 
independence  of  their  colonies,  every  mother  country  will  be 
forced  in  like  manner  to  exchange  its  dominion  over  its  colonies 
for  bonds  of  friendship  and  fraternity.  If  this  is  an  evil,  there 
is  no  way  of  preventing  it,  and  no  course  to  be  taken  but  resig 
nation  to  the  absolute  necessity.  .  .  .  Wise  and  happy  will  be 
that  nation  which  shall  first  know  how  to  bend  to  the  new  cir 
cumstances  and  consent  to  see  in  its  colonies  allies  and  not  sub 
jects.  When  the  total  separation  of  America  shall  have  healed 
the  European  nations  of  the  jealousy  of  commerce,  there  will 
exist  among  men  one  great  cause  of  war  the  less,  and  it  is  very 
difficult  not  to  desire  an  event  which  is  to  accomplish  this  good 
for  the  human  race. 

"It  is  a  very  delicate  question  to  know  if  we  can,  underhand, 
help  the  Americans  to  ammunition  or  money.     There  is  no  dif- 


INDEPENDENCE  DECLARED  69 

ficulty  in  shutting  our  eyes  on  their  purchases  in  our  ports ;  our 
merchants  are  free  to  sell  to  any  one  who  will  buy  of  them ;  we 
do  not  distinguish  the  colonists  from  the  English  themselves; 
but  to  aid  the  Americans  with  money  would  excite  in  the  Eng 
lish  just  complaints.  .  .  .  Our  preparations  ought  to  tend  only 
to  the  maintenance  of  peace.  .  .  .  Every  plan  of  aggression 
ought  to  be  rejected." 

Here  then  were  the  representatives  of  the  two  schools  of 
French  thought.  The  politic  and  crafty  Vergennes  had  no  love 
for  America,  and  probably  no  faith  in  the  future  of  the  United 
States.  But  he  favored  aiding  this  country  secretly,  and  per 
haps  openly,  for  the  sake  of  the  injury  that  could  thus  be  in 
flicted  upon  England.  The  good  Turgot,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  a  sincere  admirer  of  America,  and  had  unbounded  faith  in 
its  future  greatness.  But  while,  for  the  sake  of  humanity  in 
general,  he  earnestly  wished  for  our  success,  he  would  not  by  any 
means  ally  France  with  this  country  or  give  us  any  such  open 
aid  as  might  be  displeasing  to  England.  Evidently,  neither  was 
a  particularly  valuable  friend  to  the  struggling  colonists,  though 
the  unsympathetic  Vergennes  was  doubtless  more  inclined  to 
give  us  practical  aid  than  was  the  sympathetic  Turgot.  Between 
the  two,  King  Louis  did  not  hesitate.  He  ignored  Turgot 's  ad 
vice,  in  this  as  in  some  other  matters,  and  that  great  statesman 
was  soon  retired  to  private  life,  to  the  incalculable  loss  of  France. 
The  policy  of  Vergennes  was  adopted,  and  followed  to  the  end 
of  the  American  war.  It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized, 
however,  that  in  so  doing,  and  in  whatever  aid  was  given  to  this 
country,  there  was  no  real  love  for  America  or  for  the  American 
cause.  Malouet,  the  French  Minister  of  Marine,  opposed  the 
plan  of  aiding  the  Americans,  because  he  said  it  was  illogical 
and  dangerous  for  an  absolute  monarchy  to  aid  a  democratic 
revolution.  There  is  no  question  that  Louis  XVI  thought  the 
same,  and  in  that  belief  was  supported  by  Maurepas  and  even 
by  Necker.  Thomas  Paine  declared  that  ''with  respect  to  prin 
ciples,  Vergennes  was  a  despot."  Vergennes  hated  free  speech, 
a  free  press,  and  parliamentary  government,  and  detested  the 
Americans  as  rebels.  But  he  still  more  hated  and  feared  Eng 
land.  "The  inveterate  enmity  of  that  power  to  us,"  he  said  to 
Louis  in  1775,  "makes  it  our  duty  to  lose  no  opportunity  for 


70  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

weakening  it.  The  independence  of  the  insurgent  colonists  must 
therefore  be  encouraged." 

It  was  in  this  spirit,  not  of  hating  the  Americans  less,  but  of 
hating  Great  Britain  more,  that  the  French  government  contem 
plated  the  American  movement  toward  independence  in  the  early 
part  of  1776,  and  finally,  in  May  of  that  year,  intimated,  through 
the  picturesque  adventurer  Beaumarchais,  a  willingness  to  aid 
the  colonists  with  money  to  the  extent  of  200,000  louis  d'or,  or 
nearly  a  million  dollars. 

We  may  add,  to  show  as  completely  as  possible  the  attitude  of 
the  world  toward  America  at  this  crisis  in  affairs,  that  in  June, 
1776,  Keith,  the  British  minister  at  Vienna,  had  an  audience 
with  the  emperor,  Joseph  II,  and  also  with  the  empress,  the  illus 
trious  Maria  Theresa,  at  which  the  attitude  of  Austria  and  of 
the  empire  toward  the  American  insurgents  was  discussed.  The 
emperor  told  Keith  that  he  had  just  issued  a  proclamation, 
strictly  forbidding  his  subjects  in  the  Netherlands  to  have  any 
commerce  or  any  dealings  whatever  with  the  Americans.  "I 
am,"  he  added,  "very  sorry  for  the  difficulties  which  have  arisen 
to  distress  the  king's  government.  The  cause  in  which  he  is 
engaged  is  in  fact  the  cause  of  all  sovereigns,  for  they  have  a 
joint  interest  in  the  maintenance  of  a  just  subordination  and 
obedience  to  law,  in  all  the  monarchies  which  surround  them.  I 
saw  with  pleasure  the  vigorous  exertions  of  the  national  strength, 
which  he  is  now  employing  to  bring  his  rebellious  subjects  to  a 
speedy  submission,  and  I  most  sincerely  wish  success  to  those 
measures."  Maria  Theresa  also  expressed  herself  to  the  same 
effect.  We  must  remember  that  these  sovereigns,  especially  the 
great  empress-queen,  had  no  cause  to  love  England,  for  England 
had  not  long  before  been  the  ally  of  Frederick  of  Prussia  in  his 
war  against  Austria.  Their  sympathy  with  England  was, 
therefore,  the  more  significant.  We  may  take  it  as  typical  of 
the  general  feeling  of  the  courts  of  Europe.  The  new-born  re 
public  had  on  July  4,  1776,  not  a  single  sincere  and  effective 
official  friend  in  all  the  world. 


IV 
THE  REVOLUTION 

THE  Declaration  of  Independence  did  not  at  first  make  any 
material  change  in  the  foreign  relations  of  America.  It 
intensified  the  estrangement  which  had  already  arisen  between 
this  country  and  Great  Britain,  though  it  did  not  by  any  means 
deprive  America  of  the  friendship  and  open  advocacy  of  many 
leading  British  statesmen,  nor  did  it  close  the  door  against  Brit 
ish  attempts  at  reconciliation.  Indeed,  the  roster  of  friends  of 
America  in  Great  Britain  seemed  rather  to  lengthen,  as  the  reso 
lution  of  this  country  to  establish  its  independence  was  made 
more  manifest.  It  bore,  and  bore  to  the  end,  such  names  as 
those  of  Chatham,  Burke,  Fox,  Shelburne,  Rockingham,  Barre, 
Hartley,  Camden,  Pitt,  Grafton,  Conway,  Richmond,  Cavendish, 
and  many  others.  How  large  a  proportion  of  the  British  nation 
stood  behind  these  men  and  thought  as  they  did,  is  matter  for 
speculation  only.  At  this  date  investigation  would  be  fruitless. 
But  reason  is  on  our  side  in  assuming  the  proportion  to  have 
been  a  large  one,  comprising  a  majority  of  those  elements  which 
formed  the  real  heart  and  mind  of  the  British  people.  This  fact 
seems  to  have  been  recognized  by  the  purblind  and  fatuous  gov 
ernment  itself  to  some  extent,  for  repeated  efforts  were  made  to 
seek  conciliation  with  the  revolted  and  seceded  colonies.  A 
week  after  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  Lord 
Howe  arrived  in  America  on  an  errand  of  conciliation.  He  had, 
it  is  true,  been  despatched  hither  and  had  received  his  instruc 
tions  before  independence  was  declared ;  but  at  a  time  when  the 
intention  of  Congress  to  make  such  a  declaration  was  well  known. 
Moreover,  his  efforts  at  conciliation  were  continued  here  for  sev 
eral  months  after  the  actual  declaration  had  been  published 
and  had  been  considered  by  the  British  government.  We  must 
therefore  regard  his  mission  as  in  fact  subsequent  to  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence. 

71 


72  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

He  at  first  sought  to  negotiate  directly  with  Washington. 
But  there  was  an  obstacle  in  the  way.  He  would  not — under 
British  military  etiquette  he  thought  he  could  not — recognize 
Washington's  military  rank.  Washington's  title  of  General  had 
been  bestowed  upon  him  by  a  government  which  Howe  and  his 
government  regarded  as  unlawful,  wherefore  the  title  itself  was 
spurious.  To  call  him  "General"  Washington  would  be  too 
much  like  a  recognition  of  the  authority  and  legitimacy  of  the 
American  government.  But  Washington  would  not  countenance 
the  putting  of  such  a  slight  upon  the  American  government  as 
would  be  implied  in  permitting  himself  to  be  addressed  as  a  mere 
civilian.  Moreover,  as  he  shrewdly  pointed  out,  as  a  civilian 
he  had  no  standing  and  no  authority  to  negotiate  with  Howe,  or 
to  represent  the  American  people  or  their  government.  The 
only  ground  on  which  it  was  possible  for  him  to  negotiate  ef 
fectively  with  Howe  was  that  of  his  military  rank  and  authority, 
and  since  Howe  would  not  recognize  that,  negotiations  were  out 
of  the  question.  Congress,  however,  generously  made  a  way  out 
of  the  difficulty  by  appointing  a  committee  of  its  own  number  to 
treat  with  Howe.  The  committee  consisted  of  Franklin,  John 
Adams,  and  Rutledge,  who  were  mere  civilians.  Howe  assured 
them  that  the  king  was  sincerely  desirous  of  conciliation,  and 
was  ready  to  grant  the  reforms  and  redress  of  grievances  which 
America  demanded.  Such  grant  could  be  made,  however,  to 
America  only  as  to  a  British  colony.  The  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  was  an  awkward  obstacle.  Great  Britain  could  not 
recognize  or  acquiesce  in  it.  Was  there  no  way,  he  asked,  of 
going  back  of  it,  and  treating  on  the  ground  of  the  status  quo 
ante?  To  this  Franklin,  with  the  hearty  support  of  his  col 
leagues,  replied  with  an  emphatic  negative.  The  Declaration  of 
Independence  must  stand,  and  must  be  made  effective.  "All 
former  attachments/'  he  said,  "are  obliterated.  America  can 
not  return  to  the  dominion  of  Great  Britain."  So  Howe's  olive 
branch  was  rejected  and  his  mission  was  a  failure. 

Meantime,  what  of  the  attitude  of  France,  who  had  professed 
so  much  interest  in  the  American  cause  and  had  so  much  en 
couraged  the  Americans  to  seek  independence  ?  Already  diplo 
matic  relations  had  been  established  with  her,  and  some  secret 
aid  had  been  secured.  On  March  3,  1776,  Silas  Deane  was  ap- 


THE  REVOLUTION  73 

pointed  an  American  commissioner  to  France,  and  in  June  he 
proceeded  to  that  country,  where  he  was  presently  joined  by 
Arthur  Lee  as  a  colleague,  and  between  them  they  made  a  bad 
mess  of  American  affairs.  Deane's  mission  was  to  get  from 
France  an  army  of  25,000  troops  and  200  pieces  of  artillery,  to 
be  paid  for  at  some  indefinite  future  time.  His  own  salary  and 
expenses  were  to  be  paid  to  him  in  cargoes  of  tobacco,  rice,  and 
other  American  produce,  which  this  Government  would  consign 
to  him  and  which  he  would  sell  in  the  French  market.  Thus  he 
was  to  pass  as  a  merchant,  under  the  name  of  Timothy  Jones. 
The  scheme  was  at  best  a  wretched  one,  though  perhaps  the  best 
the  American  government  could  plan  at  that  time.  It  might 
have  worked  with  more  success  had  Deane  been  more  careful  to 
keep  his  own  counsel.  But  he  revealed  his  secrets  to  one  Edward 
Bancroft,  an  American  who  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  Congress 
and  was  employed  by  it  as  a  secret  agent,  but  who  was  in  fact  a 
spy  in  British  employ  and  who  promptly  betrayed  Deane  to  the 
British  government. 

Even  before  Deane's  arrival  in  France,  that  extraordinary 
adventurer,  Caron  de  Beaumarchais,  had  interested  himself  in 
the  American  cause.  He  was  a  watchmaker,  an  inventor,  of  lit 
erary  and  dramatic  genius,  and  of  unbounded  political  ambition. 
He  wrote  "The  Barber  of  Seville/'  "The  Marriage  of  Figaro," 
and  other  dramatic  masterpieces,  and  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  young  French  king  and  became  one  of  his  favorite  courtiers. 
He  argued  the  American  cause  to  the  king  in  theatrical  style, 
and  fascinated  him  with  it ;  nor  did  he  fail  to  impress  the  cooler 
and  more  expert  mind  of  Vergennes,  the  foreign  minister,  with 
his  schemes.  Vergennes  agreed  with  Beaumarchais  that  the 
time  was  opportune  for  the  humiliation  of  Great  Britain  and 
her  permanent  reduction  to  the  rank  of  a  second-class  power. 
To  this  end,  however,  the  American  war  must  be  prolonged  for 
at  least  a  year,  in  order  to  confirm  the  alienation  of  the  colonies 
and  to  tax  if  not  to  exhaust  the  resources  of  both  combatants. 
Turgot,  as  we  have  seen,  opposed  the  policy  of  Vergennes  and 
Beaumarchais,  and  at  first  Louis  XVI  was  inclined  to  listen  to 
him.  But  Turgot 's  influence  waned.  In  May,  1776,  he  was 
forced  out  of  the  ministry,  and  Vergennes  became  practically 
supreme.  Then  a  free  hand  was  given  to  Beaumarchais  to  exe- 


74  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

cute  his  designs  for  his  own  profit  and  for  the  promotion  of 
the  American  Revolution.  The  firm  of  Roderique  Hortalez  & 
Company  was  established  in  Paris — a  mere  pseudonym  for  Beau- 
marchais  himself.  The  French  and  Spanish  governments  se 
cretly  furnished  it  with  $600,000  capital.  Ostensibly  it  was 
nothing  but  a  private  commercial  venture,  its  object  being  to 
sell  to  the  Americans  military  supplies  which  it  had  purchased 
from  the  French  government  arsenals.  In  fact,  it  was  a  mere 
screen  to  cover  the  sales  or  gifts  of  arms  by  the  French  gov 
ernment  to  America,  which  was  not  a  lawful  thing.  For  a  time 
all  went  well,  and  the  secret  of  the  trade  was  well  kept.  But 
when  Deane  arrived  in  Paris  he  was  taken  into  Beaumarchais's 
confidence  in  all  things  except  the  connection  of  the  French 
government  with  it.  Deane  promptly  told  Edward  Bancroft, 
and  he  told  the  British  government.  Had  the  latter  known  the 
whole  truth,  it  would  have  regarded  it  as  cause  for  war  against 
France,  as  indeed  it  was.  As  it  was,  it  protested  to  the  French 
government  against  its  tolerance  of  contraband  commerce,  and 
began  seizing  the  ships  of  "Hortalez  &  Co."  or  blockading  them 
in  port.  Thereupon  Yergennes,  in  order  to  avoid  a  breach  with 
Great  Britain,  directed  measures  to  be  taken  for  the  suppres 
sion  of  the  contraband  trade  in  which  his  own  government  was 
so  deeply  implicated,  and  Beaumarchais  had  to  send  out  his  ves 
sels  surreptitiously.  The  business  was  thus  so  much  interfered 
with  that  it  was  driven  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1776  Franklin  arrived  in  France  and 
he,  Deane,  and  Arthur  Lee  were  commissioned  as  joint  envoys 
to  that  country.  His  arrival  created  a  great  sensation,  in  both 
France  and  Great  Britain.  Lord  Rockingham  declared  that  it 
was  a  serious  blow  to  Great  Britain,  more  than  counterbalancing 
the  British  victory  on  Long  Island  and  capture  of  New  York. 
Lord  Stormont,  the  British  ambassador,  threatened  to  leave 
Paris  at  once  if  the  " chief  of  the  American  rebels"  were  per 
mitted  to  come  thither.  Vergennes  replied  that  he  had  sent  word 
to  Franklin  at  Nantes,  where  he  had  landed,  not  to  come  on  to 
Paris;  but  if  the  message  had  miscarried,  and  Franklin  did 
come  to  Paris,  it  would  be  scandalous  inhospitality  and  a  viola 
tion  of  the  usages  of  civilized  nations  to  expel  him.  So  Frank 
lin  went  to  Paris.,  where  he  was  received  with  favor  by  the 


THE  REVOLUTION  75 

Government  and  with  vast  enthusiasm  by  the  people.  In  a  few 
days  he  and  his  two  ill-assorted  colleagues  were  received  by 
Vergennes,  and  they  asked  plumply  that  France  should  make  a 
treaty  of  commerce  and  alliance  with  America,  and  should  lend 
eight  warships  to  release  Beaumarchais 's  ships  from  blockade. 
Vergennes  replied  that  this  was  asking  entirely  too  much. 
France  could  not  take  open  ground  against  Great  Britain  in 
that  way.  But  by  way  of  consolation  and  encouragement  he 
offered  them  a  secret  loan  of  $400,000,  to  be  repaid  after  the 
war  and  without  interest.  Of  course  this  action  by  Vergennes 
was  of  assistance  to  America.  But  it  was  of  none  to  the  "Hor- 
talez  &  Co."  enterprise,  which  quickly  fell  into  hopeless  straits. 
Franklin  was  not  informed  of  any  of  the  details  of  that  enter 
prise,  but  left  them  all  to  Deane.  Neither  does  Lee  seem  to  have 
been  fully  informed,  but  he  did  know  that  Beaumarchais  was 
the  whole  concern,  and  he  assumed  that  the  supplies  were  free 
gifts  from  France  to  America,  and  that  whatever  America  paid 
for  them  would  be  divided  between  Beaumarchais  and  Deane. 
In  this  Lee  was  probably  quite  honest,  but  he  was  nevertheless 
unjust  to  Deane.  He  reported  his  assumption  to  Congress  as 
facts,  with  the  result  that  Congress  at  once  stopped  sending  mer 
chandise  to  * l  Hortalez  &  Co. ' '  in  payment  for  supplies,  and  that 
firm's  operations  came  to  an  end.  Deane  was  unable  to  explain 
matters  without  betraying  confidence,  and  so  was  himself  dis 
credited  and  ruined.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that  Deane  and  Lee, 
while  both  well  meaning,  were  subject  to  infirmities  of  tem 
perament  which  quite  unfitted  them  for  diplomatic  work,  and 
moreover  the  triple  commission  system  was  a  clumsy  and  im 
practicable  thing.  Later,  in  1778,  John  Adams  discovered  and 
accurately  described  the  true  state  of  affairs  when  he  reached 
France  and  found,  as  he  said,  "  animosity  between  Mr.  Deane 
and  Mr.  Lee;  between  Dr.  Franklin  and  Mr.  Lee;  between  Mr. 
Izard  and  Dr.  Franklin;  between  Dr.  Bancroft  and  Mr.  Lee; 
between  Mr.  Carmichael  and  all." 

Apart  from  the  "Hortalez  &  Co."  enterprise,  Deane 's  activi 
ties  were  chiefly  directed  to  granting  military  commissions  and 
sending  European  recruits  to  the  American  army.  Such  serv 
ices  were  generally  of  doubtful  value.  The  men  he  sent  over 
were  chiefly  adventurers,  who  had  no  heart  in  the  American 


76  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

cause,  but  were  seeking  what  profit  they  might  make  out  of  it. 
Some  of  them  were  spies  in  the  employ  of  the  French  govern 
ment,  or  of  ambitious  Frenchmen.  Even  De  Kalb,  the  Alsatian, 
who  did  us  such  good  service  in  the  Carolina  campaign,  came 
over  as  a  secret  agent  of  the  Count  de  Broglie,  who  aspired  to 
play  in  America  the  part  of  William  of  Orange.  But  De  Kalb 
soon  renounced  that  service  and  became  a  true  friend  of  the 
American  cause.  Washington  was  much  annoyed  at  the  influx 
of  Deane  's  mercenaries,  and  on  one  occasion  declared  to  Gouver- 
neur  Morris:  "I  do  most  devoutly  wish  that  we  had  not  a 
single  foreigner  among  us,  except  M.  de  Lafayette."  Deane 
also  received  offers  of  mercenary  troops  from  Germany  and 
Switzerland,  and  he  seemed  to  favor  the  employment  of  them, 
and  suggested  it  to  Congress,  which  happily  disapproved  it. 

Amid  all  these  doings,  the  attitude  of  the  French  king  was 
unsympathetic  toward  America.  It  is  well  known  that  he 
strongly  disapproved  Lafayette's  coming  to  this  country  and 
tried  to  prevent  it.  We  have  said  that  he  fell  in  with  Beau- 
marchais's  proposals.  But  that  was  only  because  that  wily  ad 
venturer  shrewdly  suggested  to  him  that  it  would  be  to  the 
interest  of  France  to  give  America  such  aid  as  would  put  her 
forces  on  equal  terms  with  those  of  England,  "but  no  more," 
and  so  not  to  give  America  the  victory,  but  to  prolong  the  war 
indefinitely.  Even  such  aid  to  democratic  rebels  the  king  ac 
quiesced  in  with  much  reluctance  and  many  misgivings,  declar 
ing  that  he  did  not  think  it  right.  It  was  too  inimical  to  the 
principles  of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Such  was  the  general 
attitude  of  the  "ruling  classes"  in  France,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  like  Lafayette,  who  were  sincere  lovers  of  popular  liberty 
and  friends  of  America.  Botta  doubtless  set  forth  the  situation 
accurately  when  he  wrote  in  his  "History  of  the  American 
War":  "Though  France  would  rather  see  America  inde 
pendent  than  reconciled  with  England,  she  relished  the  prospect 
of  a  long  war  between  them  still  better  than  independence." 
Such  a  war  would  ravage  the  colonies  and  exhaust  England. 
So  France  encouraged  the  colonies  to  fight  and  aided  them  just 
enough  to  keep  them  fighting,  but  was  careful  not  to  help  them 
to  win  too  soon  the  final  victory.  1 1  Thus  France, ' '  wrote  Botta 
again,  "pursuing  invariably  the  course  prescribed  by  reasons  of 


THE  REVOLUTION  77 

state,  on  the  one  hand  amused  the  British  ministers  with  pro 
testations  of  friendship,  and  on  the  other  encouraged  the  Amer 
icans  with  secret  succors,  confirming  their  resolution  with  con 
tinual  promises  of  future  cooperation.  .  .  .  Alternately  ad 
vancing  and  receding,  never  allowing  their  intentions  to  be 
fathomed,  the  French  ministers  kept  the  Americans  in  continual 
uncertainty. ' ' 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  such  treatment  in  time  proved 
trying  to  the  Americans.  A  year  of  it  was  sufficient  to  exhaust 
their  patience.  In  August,  1777,  the  American  commissioners 
presented  a  memorial  to  the  French  government,  in  which  they 
pretty  directly  intimated  that  if  France  did  not  come  to  the 
mark  with  more  efficient  aid  at  an  early  date,  the  colonies  might 
make  peace  with  England.  Nor  was  this  by  any  means  a  ground 
less  hint.  There  was  still  in  America  a  large  and  influential 
party  which  was  in  favor  of  such  a  settlement,  and  there  was 
of  course  such  a  party  in  England,  including  not  a  few  of  the 
foremost  statesmen  of  the  kingdom.  Nor  was  it  an  idle  warning 
that  the  Americans  gave  in  that  same  memorial,  that  in  case  of 
such  reconciliation  and  reunion  between  the  colonies  and  Eng 
land,  the  French  West  India  Islands  would  be  endangered  and 
France  would  be  in  peril  of  utter  exclusion  from  this  hemisphere. 
The  French  government,  through  its  corps  of  ministers  and  se 
cret  agents,  was  too  well  informed  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  both 
England  and  America  to  discredit  the  force  of  these  suggestions, 
and  was  therefore  compelled  to  regard  the  memorial  seriously. 
It  ventured,  however,  for  a  time  to  reply  with  further  evasions, 
procrastinations,  and  delay.  In  so  doing  it  incurred  a  grave 
risk,  but  was  at  least  lucky  in  the  outcome. 

The  Americans  fulfilled  their  threat.  They  did  make  over 
tures  to  England  for  a  reconciliation.  But  "inter  arma,  leges 
silent."  The  successes  of  Burgoyne  in  the  beginning  of  his  cam 
paign  made  the  English  government  confident  of  victory  over 
the  "  rebels, "  and  caused  it  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  American 
proposals.  Never  was  there  in  the  whole  struggle,  as  the  event 
presently  showed,  a  greater  blunder  made  by  the  purblind  min 
istry.  It  sacrificed  the  last  chance  of  reconciliation.  For  with 
their  overtures  thus  refused,  the  Americans  set  themselves  the 
more  sternly  to  work  to  fight  the  battle  out,  and,  thanks  to  the 


78  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

prowess  of  Arnold  and  Schuyler  and  Morgan,  a  startling  change 
in  circumstances  was  soon  effected.  Burgoyne  was  beaten  at 
Saratoga,  and  with  his  whole  army  was  compelled  to  surrender 
to  the  Americans.  It  was  a  staggering  blow  to  England,  and  it 
gave  a  new  aspect  to  the  whole  situation.  It  is  true  that  renewed 
overtures  for  peace  were  then  made  by  Americans,  notably  by 
Horatio  Gates  in  his  puffed-up  vanity  at  wearing  the  laurels 
which  other  and  better  men  had  won.  But  such  overtures  were 
not  as  favorable  to  England  as  those  of  an  earlier  date,  and  even 
such  as  they  were,  it  is  doubtful  if  they  would  have  commanded 
the  sanction  of  the  American  people.  The  latter  question  did 
not  come  up  for  answer,  however,  because  the  English  govern 
ment  delayed  to  enter  into  negotiations  until  it  was  too  late. 

The  French  government,  however,  was  moved  to  act.  It  saw 
that  there  was  danger,  either  that  peace  would  be  made  between 
the  colonies  and  England  by  concession  and  negotiation,  which 
was  the  last  thing  it  wanted,  or  that  the  colonies  would  win  their 
independence  in  the  field  without  French  aid  and  more  quickly 
than  was  desirable  for  French  interests.  So  it  decided  to  inter 
vene,  partly  to  secure  American  gratitude,  which  might  be  of 
material  profit  to  France ;  partly  to  be  able  to  regulate  the  prog 
ress  of  the  war  and  thus  to  prevent  it  from  ending  too  soon; 
and  partly  to  secure  for  France  a  voice  in  the  final  making  of 
peace  and  in  the  demarcation  of  boundaries  in  America.  The 
news  of  Burgoyne 's  surrender  reached  France  at  the  beginning 
of  December,  1777.  Yergennes  was  then  employing  as  a  spy 
the  landlord  of  the  house  in  which  Franklin  and  Deane  lived. 
That  spy,  by  dint  of  diligent  listening  at  keyholes  and  similar 
tricks,  was  able  to  report  that  negotiations  were  in  progress  with 
England  for  an  ending  of  the  war.  This  information  convinced 
Vergennes  that  further  delay  would  be  dangerous.  So  on  De 
cember  6,  two  days  after  the  arrival  of  the  news  of  Burgoyne 's 
surrender,  he  sent  Gerard — afterward  French  envoy  to  America 
—to  Franklin,  to  tell  him  that  the  French  court  was  at  last  con 
vinced  that  the  colonies  were  in  earnest  and  were  able  to  main 
tain  their  independence,  and  were  worthy  of  recognition,  and 
that  it  would  therefore  be  glad  to  renew  negotiations  for  a  treaty 
of  alliance.  By  this  means  Vergennes  counted  on  being  able 
to  head  off  the  negotiations  with  England  and  thus  to  keep  the 


THE  EEVOLUTION  79 

colonies  and  the  mother  country  apart,  and  to  prolong  the  war 
for  another  year. 

The  trick  was  successful.  The  Americans  paused  in  their  ne 
gotiations  with  England,  and  a  little  later  abandoned  them 
altogether.  This  was  when,  on  December  16,  the  French  gov 
ernment  announced  to  them  that  "France  would  not  only  ac 
knowledge  but  would  support  with  all  her  forces  the  independj 
ence  of  the  United  States,  and  would  conclude  with  them  a  treaty 
of  amity  and  commerce."  With  surprising  and  commendable 
frankness  it  added  that  "His  Most  Christian  Majesty  desired 
no  indemnification  of  the  United  States,  nor  pretended  to  act 
solely  with  a  view  to  their  particular  interest,  since,  besides  the 
benevolence  he  bore  them,  it  was  manifest  that  the  power  of 
England  would  be  diminished  by  the  dismemberment  of  her 
colonies. "  It  was  further  stated  by  the  French  government 
that  this  treaty  would  be  made  as  soon  as  the  assent  of  Spain 
could  be  got,  that  being  necessary  under  the  Bourbon  Family 
Compact  between  France  and  Spain ;  and  that  all  France  would 
ask  of  America  would  be  that,  in  case  of  war  between  France 
and  England,  which  was  likely  to  occur,  America  would  not 
make  peace  with  England  until  her  own  independence  was  fully 
secured,  nor  until  France  also  made  peace  with  England.  This1 
definite  promise  satisfied  the  Americans  and  inclined  them  to 
withdraw  from  all  negotiations  with  England  and  to  wait  pa 
tiently  again  for  France 's  action. 

The  gross  insincerity  of  the  French  government  is  patent  in 
the  fact  that  it  did  not  attempt  to  secure  Spain's  assent  to  the 
treaty,  although  Vergennes  declared  to  the  Americans  that  it 
was  necessary  to  do  so  and  that  the  treaty  could  not  be  made 
until  it  was  done.  On  the  contrary,  it  carefully  concealed  from 
Spain  the  fact  that  it  was  making  such  a  treaty,  and,  even  after 
the  treaty  was  made  and  signed,  denied  that  it  had  made  it.  The 
only  recognition  of  the  "Bourbon  Family  Compact"  in  the 
treaty  was  in  a  private  clause,  which  provided  that  Spain's  as 
sent  should  be  secured  before  the  treaty  became  valid.  On 
January  8,  1778,  further  negotiations  took  place,  the  French 
stipulating  that  they  were  not  to  help  America  subdue  Canada 
or  the  British  West  Indies,  and  were  to  give  only  naval  aid. 
Ten  days  later  Gerard  brought  to  the  American  commissioners 


80  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tentative  drafts  of  the  treaties  for  consideration.  More  than  a 
fortnight  of  consideration  and  discussion  followed,  all  conducted 
with  profound  secrecy.  Franklin  secured  the  insertion  into  the 
treaty  of  a  recognition  of  the  principle  first  set  forth  by  Fred 
erick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  and  warmly  advocated  by  Franklin, 
that  "free  ships  make  free  goods,"  a  principle  which  afterward 
formed  the  basis  of  the  Armed  Neutrality,  and  for  which  Russia 
has  received  much  unmerited  credit.  There  was  much  discus 
sion,  also,  over  the  question  of  West  India  trade.  Congress  had 
instructed  the  American  commissioners  to  urge  that  no  export 
duty  should  be  imposed  by  France  upon  molasses  shipped  from 
her  West  India  islands  to  the  United  States,  that  commodity 
being  particularly  important  to  America  as  the  raw  material  of 
rum.  When  the  Americans  asked  this  stipulation,  the  French, 
through  Gerard,  asked  some  corresponding  concessions,  and 
much  dispute  ensued,  in  the  course  of  which  the  cantankerous- 
ness  of  Arthur  Lee  came  near  to  wrecking  the  whole  business. 
Finally,  however,  an  agreement  was  reached,  and  on  February 
6  the  treaties  were  signed,  under  a  strict  pledge  that  they  were 
to  be  kept  secret  until  France  was  ready  for  their  publication. 
The  news  of  them,  however,  leaked  out;  just  how  has  not  ap 
peared.  Deane  and  Lee  each  accused  the  other  of  betraying 
them,  and  Lee  even  went  so  far  as  to  accuse  Franklin.  Presently 
Deane  was  recalled,  and  John  Adams  was  appointed  to  fill  his 
place.  Adams  took  Lee's  side  in  his  controversy  with  Deane, 
and  it  seems  probable  that  Lee  was  entirely  honest  in  these  par 
ticular  matters,  if  not  in  all  others,  though  he  was  doubtless 
much  mistaken  on  many  points,  and  was  by  natural  temperament 
quite  unfit  for  diplomatic  work.  Moreover,  the  plan  of  main 
taining  three  coequal  representatives  at  the  French  court  was 
an  impractical  one  that  was  sure  to  cause  trouble,  and  it  was 
therefore  a  most  auspicious  thing  for  Congress,  in  October,  1778, 
to  make  Franklin  sole  minister  to  France. 

Thus  France  at  last  formally  gave  to  America  the  long-prom 
ised  countenance,  if  not  as  yet  much  material  aid.  It  is  in 
structive  to  note  to  what  date  it  was  postponed.  Lexington,  Con 
cord,  Ticonderoga,  Crown  Point,  Bunker  Hill,  Arnold's  expedi 
tion  to  Quebec,  and  the  Siege  of  Boston,  all  occurred  before  the 
Declaration  of  -Independence.  The  battles  of  Fort  Moultrie, 


THE  REVOLUTION  81 

Long  Island,  Harlem  Heights,  White  Plains,  Fort  Washington, 
Trenton,  and  Princeton  were  all  fought  before  France  gave  us 
even  any  secret  aid  beyond  that  of  "Hortalez  &  Co."  There 
after  the  battles  of  Ridgefield,  Ticonderoga,  Bennington,  Oris- 
kany,  Brandywine,  and  Germantown,  the  flight  from  Philadel 
phia,  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne,  and  Lord  North's  notice  of 
proposals  for  conciliation,  all  came  before  France  would  make  a 
treaty  with  the  country  she  had  so  much  incited  to  war  and  had 
so  much  promised  to  aid. 

The  French,  we  have  seen,  made  it  clear  in  the  treaty  that  they 
were  not  to  help  the  United  States  conquer  Canada.  More  than 
that,  they  were  strongly  opposed  to  any  attempt  at  such  con 
quest,  and  earnestly  strove  to  dissuade  the  Americans  from  mak 
ing  it.  When  Gerard  came  hither  as  the  first  French  minister 
to  the  United  States,  some  of  his  earliest  and  most  strenuous 
efforts  were  directed,  though  vainly,  to  restraining  Gouverneur 
Morris  from,  so  much  as  mentioning  Canada  in  the  congressional 
instructions  to  Franklin.  He  also  urged  with  equal  earnestness 
that  the  United  States  should  not  seek  in  the  Northwest  Terri 
tory  a  frontage  on  the  Mississippi  River,  lest  Spain  should  be 
alarmed  and  antagonized.  The  French  policy  was  to  let  Eng 
land  retain  Canada  and  the  Northwest  Territory,  so  as  to  keep 
the  United  States  small  and  comparatively  weak,  to  prevent  this 
country  from  gaming  territorial  dominance  on  the  continent, 
and  to  leave  the  largest  possible  probability  of  further  friction 
and  conflict  between  England  and  the  United  States,  to  the  in 
jury  of  both.  France's  interest  was  not  in  our  welfare,  but  in 
the  weakening  and  ultimate  ruin  of  both  America  and  England. 
She  was  willing  to  help  America  in  order  to  injure  England,  but 
she  did  not  mean  to  let  America  grow  too  strong,  and  she  would 
be  quite  ready  in  turn  to  help  England  in  order  to  injure  Amer 
ica,  if  that  would  serve  her  own  selfish  purpose.  Gerard  ad 
mitted  that  if  we  antagonized  Spain,  France  would  stand  with 
Spain  rather  than  with  us;  and  it  was  perfectly  notorious  that 
Spain  did  not  want  the  United  States  to  become  independent,  but 
wished  us  to  remain  always  so  weak  as  to  "feel  the  need  of  sure 
ties,  allies,  and  protectors." 

There  was  in  America  from  the  beginning  a  strong  ambition 
to  conquer  and  annex  Canada,  though  Washington  never  shared 

VOL.  1—6 


82  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

it,  but  rather  opposed  it.  Lafayette,  it  is  interesting  to  note, 
wanted  to  conquer  Canada  for  France,  with,  the  help  of  the 
United  States.  He  thought  that  France  should  help  the  United 
States  to  win  independence,  and  that  the  United  States  in  return 
should  help  France  to  recover  Canada.  Many  Americans,  in  the 
first  flush  of  enthusiasm  over  the  French  alliance,  favored  that 
scheme,  and  when  Lafayette  proposed  to  Congress  in  October, 
1778,  that  Canada  should  be  conquered,  for  America  if  not  for 
France,  there  was  at  first  a  prospect  that  it  would  be  approved. 
Washington,  however,  threw  all  the  weight  of  his  advice  against 
it.  He  was  unalterably  opposed  to  letting  France  have  Canada, 
for  then,  with  the  Spanish  at  New  Orleans  and  along  the  Mis 
sissippi,  the  United  States  would  be  within  the  grip  of  France 
and  Spain,  just  as  the  colonies  were  at  the  beginning  of  the 
French  and  Indian  "War.  Moreover,  if  France  helped  us  to  win 
Canada  for  ourselves,  there  was  danger  that  she  would  be 
tempted  to  take  it  for  herself.  "Men  are  very  apt,"  he  wrote 
to  Congress,  "to  run  into  extremes.  Hatred  of  England  may 
carry  some  into  an  excess  of  confidence  in  France,  especially 
when  motives  of  gratitude  are  thrown  into  the  scale.  Men  of 
this  description  would  be  unwilling  to  suppose  France  capable 
of  acting  so  ungenerous  a  part.  I  am  heartily  disposed  to  enter 
tain  the  most  favorable  sentiments  of  our  new  ally  and  to  cher 
ish  them  in  others  to  a  reasonable  degree.  But  it  is  a  maxim, 
founded  on  the  universal  experience  of  mankind,  that  no  nation 
is  to  be  trusted  further  than  it  is  bound  by  its  own  interest; 
and  no  prudent  statesman  or  politician  will  venture  to  depart 
from  it."  The  Father  of  his  Country  never  spoke  or  penned 
wiser  words  than  those,  which  are  worthy  to  be  engraved  in  gold 
upon  the  walls  of  every  state  department  and  chancellery  in  the 
world;  and  it  was  of  inestimable  value  to  America  that  the  au 
thor  of  those  words  was  the  first  President  and  therefore  the 
founder  of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  constitutional  republic.  I 
&**true  that  Congress  did  not  altogether  follow  the  counsel  o 
Washington  in  this  matter.  It  is  also  true  that  Washington 
was  mistaken  in  supposing,  as  he  did,  that  Lafayette  had  been 
prompted  by  the  French  king  and  his  ministers  to  make  the  pro 
posal  of  Canadian  conquest.  But  the  general  principle  of 
Washington's  policy  was  sound,  and  in  the  end  it  prevailed. 


THE  REVOLUTION  83 

The  fact  is  that  the  French  government,  far  from  wishing  to 
conquer  Canada,  was  vigorously  opposed  to  any  such  scheme. 
Vergennes  did  not  mean,  if  he  could  help  it,  to  have  the  United 
States  become  a  great  power,  so  as  to  dominate  the  continent. 
Canada  must,  he  insisted,  be  left  to  England,  and  Florida  must 
be  Spain's.  He  also  suggested  to  Spain  the  practicability  of  her 
seizing  the  Northwest  and  Southwest  territories,  between  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Alleghenies;  and  even  urged  the  American 
Congress  to  let  Spain  have  those  lands  without  demur,  declaring 
that  France  would  not  help  the  United  States  to  get  them  for 
itself. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  date  of  the  French  alliance.  Eleven 
days  after  the  signing  of  the  treaty,  and  before  the  news  had 
widely  leaked  out,  Lord  North,  on  February  17,  introduced  into 
Parliament  two  bills  looking  to  an  arrangement  with  America. 
One  of  these  declared  that  Parliament  had  no  intention  of  exer 
cising  the  right  to  tax  America.  The  other  provided  for  the 
sending  of  commissioners  to  America,  to  make  peace  on  the  basis 
of  the  status  quo  ante  helium.  The  British  government  thus 
proposed  to  acknowledge  that  it  had  been  altogether  in  the  wrong, 
and  to  concede  all  America 's  demands,  save  actual  independence. 
Such  overtures  to  America  would  not  have  satisfied  all.  Prob 
ably  they  would  not  have  been  accepted  by  Congress.  But  they 
would  no  doubt  have  been  acceptable  to  many,  and  the  making 
of  them  would  have  caused  grave  dissensions  in  this  country  and 
might  have  ruined  the  cause  of  independence.  But  of  course  it 
was  now  too  late,  after  the  making  of  the  French  treaty,  for 
them  to  have  any  such  effect.  Indeed,  they  were  destined  in  ad 
vance  to  be  discredited  in  Parliament.  For  news  of  the  sign 
ing  of  the  treaty  of  friendship  and  commerce  between  France 
and  America  had  at  last  got  out.  It  had  reached  the  ears  of 
Horace  "Walpole,  and  he  had  imparted  it  to  Charles  James  Fox. 
So  when  Lord  North  sat  down,  after  introducing  the  bills,  Fox 
arose  and  asked  whether  a  treaty  had  not  already  been  made 
ten  days  before,  between  France  and  America,  and  if  so,  if  the 
British  government  was  not  too  late  with  its  proposals  for  con 
ciliation.  Lord  North  hesitatingly  admitted  that  he  had  heard 
hints  of  such  a  thing.  There  is  little  doubt  that  he  spoke  truly, 
and  that  he  had  heard  nothing  more  than  vague  hints.  But  the 


84  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

mischief  was  done,  and  Parliament  realized  that  the  useful  prom 
ise  of  the  bills  was  destroyed.  The  bills  were  indeed  passed, 
and  Townshend's  fatal  policy  was  nominally  reversed  and  re 
pudiated.  On  March  11  they  received  royal  assent,  and  a  little 
later  three  commissioners  were  sent  to  America  to  make  peace. 
But  it  was  too  late.  Congress  summarily  rejected  the  overtures. 
The  disclosure  of  the  treaties  had  its  natural  effect  in  causing 
hostilities  between  France  and  England.  On  March  13,  1778, 
the  Marquis  de  Noailles,  the  French  ambassador  in  London,  an 
nounced  to  the  British  government  that  France  had  made  a 
treaty  of  friendship  and  commerce  with  the  United  States.  He 
did  not  mention  the  treaty  of  alliance,  nor  was  it  necessary  that 
he  should  do  so.  The  other  was  sufficient  to  arouse  England's 
resentment.  Ten  days  later  Lord  Stormont,  the  British  am 
bassador,  abruptly  left  Paris  without  taking  leave  of  the  French 
government.  A  week  later  Gerard  sailed  for  America,  the  first 
French  minister  to  the  United  States.  Within  a  month  more 
French  and  British  fleets  sailed  for  American  waters,  and  the 
war  between  France  and  England  had  begun.  It  was  in  such 
circumstances  that  the  "forlorn  hope"  of  the  three  English  peace 
commissioners  came  to  America.  Their  attempts  to  negotiate, 
at  first  with  Washington  and  then  with  Congress,  failed  utterly. 
But  in  a  letter  to  Congress,  in  June,  they  made  some  comments 
upon  the  French  alliance  which  are  worthy  to  be  recalled.  "We 
cannot  but  remark, "  they  wrote,  "the  insidious  interposition 
of  a  power  which  has  from  the  first  settlement  of  the  colonies 
been  actuated  with  enmity  to  us  both ;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
pretended  date  or  present  form  of  the  French  offers  to  North 
America,  it  is  notorious  that  they  have  only  been  made  because 
it  was  believed  that  Great  Britain  had  conceived  the  design  of 
an  amicable  arrangement,  and  with  a  view  to  prevent  reconcilia 
tion  and  to  prolong  this  destructive  war."  In  that,  it  must  be 
confessed,  the  English  commissioners  expressed  practically  the 
truth  concerning  the  French  government  and  its  motives,  though 
not,  of  course,  concerning  some  individual  Frenchmen  such  as 
Lafayette.  But  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  French  king 
did  not  approve  Lafayette's  generous  conduct  toward  America, 
and  strove  to  prevent  it  and  to  punish  him  for  it,  even  to  the  ex 
tent  of  imprisoning -him.  Yet  Lafayette  seems,  in  his  noble  en- 


THE  REVOLUTION  85 

thusiasm,  to  have  invested  the  attitude  of  the  French  government 
with  the  same  fine  spirit  that  marked  his  own,  and  he  resented 
this  letter  of  the  commissioners  so  bitterly  that  he  challenged  the 
Earl  of  Carlisle,  one  of  the  commissioners,  to  fight  a  duel  over  it, 
a  challenge  which  Carlisle  declined. 

Meantime,  some  interesting  complications  were  in  progress 
with  Spain.  We  have  seen  that  Vergennes,  at  first  protesting 
that  France  could  not  make  the  American  alliance  without 
Spain's  assent,  finally  did  make  it  without  Spain's  assent  or 
knowledge,  and  he  had  his  representative  in  London  deny  to  the 
Spanish  ambassador  there  that  such  a  treaty  had  been  made. 
When  at  last  the  facts  came  out,  the  Spanish  government  was 
indignant.  Charles  III  of  Spain  earnestly  desired  the  main 
tenance  of  peace  in  Europe.  Moreover,  he  distrusted  France, 
and  feared  that  Spain  would  be  made  her  tool  and  would  be 
sacrificed  to  her  selfish  interests.  His  chief  minister,  Florida 
Blanca,  took  even  stronger  ground.  He  aspired  to  be  the  dic 
tator  of  American  affairs,  and  to  restore  Spanish  dominance 
upon  this  continent.  His  wrath  at  France's  recognition  of 
American  independence  was  therefore  great.  He  promptly 
turned  to  Spain's  ancient  enemy,  England,  and  proposed  some 
thing  much  like  an  alliance  with  her.  His  suggestion  was  that 
Spain  and  England  should  cooperate  for  the  settlement  of  Amer 
ican  affairs.  England  was  to  keep  Canada,  Nova  Scotia,  and  the 
Northwest  Territory,  and  Spain  was  to  have  all  south  of  the  Ohio 
River  and  the  whole  coast  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  which  was  to  be 
a  " closed  sea"  belonging  exclusively  to  Spain.  However,  Great 
Britain  was  to  have  the  right  to  navigate  it,  and  also  to  navigate 
the  Mississippi  River  through  Spanish  territory.  The  United 
States,  if  permitted  to  be  independent,  was  to  be  confined  to  the 
narrow  strip  between  the  Allegheny  Mountains  and  the  Atlantic, 
extending  from  Maine  to  Georgia ;  but  Great  Britain  was  to  hold 
Rhode  Island,  to  break  the  continuity  of  the  coast  line.  The 
reply  of  the  English  government  was  that  it  could  enter  into  no 
negotiations  so  long  as  France  was  assisting  the  American  rebels. 

Then  Florida  Blanca  turned  to  France,  and  sought  to  negoti 
ate  a  treaty  as  advantageous  as  possible  to  Spain.  He  especially 
wanted  to  shut  the  United  States  away  from  the  Mississippi 
River,  and  he  proposed  to  join  forces  with  Vergennes,  and  even 


86  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

to  approve  the  latter 's  alliance  with  America,  which  he  had  a  lit 
tle  time  before  denounced  as  li worthy  of  Don  Quixote."  He 
urged  upon  Vergennes  various  plans  of  campaign.  One  was  to 
invade  England  itself.  Another  was  to  settle  American  affairs 
by  making  the  United  States  independent,  but  giving  Rhode 
Island  to  Great  Britain,  in  order  to  weaken  the  United  States 
and  to  make  lasting  irritation  and  trouble  between  it  and  Eng 
land.  No  wonder  that  Vergennes  declared  that  Spain  never  had 
anything  in  common  with  the  United  States !  This  latter  propo 
sition  was  too  radical  for  France,  though  Vergennes,  who  through 
Montmorin,  his  representative  at  Madrid,  was  almost  desperately 
endeavoring  to  secure  Spanish  support  in  the  war  with  England 
upon  which  he  was  entering,  suggested  that  France  had  not  com 
mitted  herself  to  American  sovereignty  over  the  territory  west  of 
the  Alleghenies,  and  might  conspire  and  cooperate  with  Spain 
to  rob  her  of  it  and  keep  the  United  States  away  from  the  Mis 
sissippi.  This  half-promise,  which  France  afterward  loyally 
strove  to  fulfil,  went  far  toward  persuading  Spain  to  ally  her 
self  with  France.  There  is  little  doubt  that  Charles  III  sin 
cerely  wanted  to  keep  the  peace.  He  also  feared  that  in  an  alli 
ance  with  France,  for  war  upon  England,  Spain  would  be  made 
the  tool  of  France.  Still,  he  desired  to  win  back  Florida,  Ja 
maica,  and  Gibraltar,  which  the  British  had  taken  from  Spain. 
The  Spanish  ultimatum  to  France,  therefore,  was  that  the  United 
States  should  be  shut  away  from  the  Mississippi,  and  that  peace 
should  not  be  concluded  until  England  had  been  compelled  to 
surrender  Florida,  Jamaica,  and  Gibraltar.  To  these  terms, 
Vergennes,  in  his  desperation,  agreed. 

The  treaty  of  Aranjurez  was  accordingly  signed  between 
France  and  Spain,  on  April  12,  1779.  Under  its  terms,  Spain 
was  to  aid  France  in  warring  against  England,  and  neither  party 
was  to  make  peace  with  England  without  the  assent  of  the  other. 
Such  assent  was  not  to  be  given  by  Spain  until  she  had  regained 
Gibraltar,  nor  by  France  until  the  British  hold  upon  Dunkirk 
had  been  fully  relinquished.  Spain  did  not  by  this  treaty  ally 
herself  with  America,  nor  did  she  contemplate  such  a  step.  In 
deed,  it  was  stipulated  that  she  should  not  do  so,  save  with  the 
express  permission  of  France.  The  latter  did  not  want  Spain 
or  any  other  power  to  aid  the  Americans,  lest  they  should  thus 


THE  REVOLUTION  87 

win  their  independence  more  quickly  than  France  desired,  and 
should  do  so  without  being  made  to  feel  much  dependence  upon 
and  gratitude  toward  France.  The  French  aim  was  to  let  Amer 
ica  become  independent  just  when  it  suited  France,  and  to  just 
such  an  extent  as  suited  France ;  and  to  make  America  feel  that 
she  owed  her  independence  to  France  and  must  therefore  con 
tinue  to  regard  that  country  as  her  benefactor  and  protector. 
In  these  circumstances  it  is  not  surprising  that  France  kept  the 
terms  of  this  precious  treaty  secret  from  America.  If  they  had 
not  been  kept  thus  secret  the  French  minister,  Gerard,  would 
have  had  a  still  more  difficult  task  on  hand  than  he  had  when  he 
came  hither  and  tried  to  persuade  the  committee  of  Congress  on 
foreign  affairs  to  modify  American  demands  and  ambitions  so 
as  to  meet  the  wishes  of  Spain ;  his  argument  being  that  if  that 
was  not  done,  Spain  would  not  help  France,  and  then  France 
could  not  help  America.  He  further  intimated  that  if  the 
United  States  would  abandon  its  claims  upon  the  territory  be 
tween  the  Alleghenies  and  the  Mississippi,  and  to  a  frontage 
upon  the  latter  river,  Spain  would  recognize  American  inde 
pendence  and  make  with  the  United  States  a  treaty  of  commerce. 
Probably  Gerard  himself  believed  this  to  be  true.  But  no  good 
reason  exists  for  supposing  that  it  was  true,  or  that  any  such 
fatal  sacrifice  by  this  country  would  have  gained  the  actual  aid 
of  Spain. 

That  the  chief  aim  of  France  in  allying  herself  with  America 
was  to  cripple  England  is  unquestionable.  Equally  certain  is  it 
that  both  France  and  Spain  at  an  early  date  feared  lest  they 
should  be  led  to  play  the  part  of  Frankenstein,  by  aiding  in  the 
creation  of  a  new  power  that  should  in  time  overshadow  both. 
Accordingly  France,  almost  as  soon  as  the  treaties  with  America 
were  made,  began  to  look  about  for  precautions  against  the  too 
great  growth  of  the  United  States,  while  the  same  motive  was 
absolutely  dominant  in  the  Spanish  mind.  Thus  was  presented 
the  strange  spectacle  of  one  actual  and  one  potential  ally  of 
America  devoting  their  thought  largely  to  ways  and  means  for 
fettering  and  crippling  America  and  making  it  from  its  birth  a 
dwarf  and  a  weakling  among  the  nations.  Vergennes,  in  Octo 
ber  and  November,  1778,  expressed  to  Montmorin,  his  minister 
at  Madrid,  fears  lest  in  time  the  natural  ties  of  race  and  blood 


88  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

should  incline  America  toward  commercial  intimacy  and  polit 
ical  friendship  with  England,  and  he  promptly  agreed  with  the 
suggestion  of  Florida  Blanca,  that  the  possession  of  Canada  and 
Nova  Scotia  should  be  guaranteed  to  Great  Britain,  in  order  that 
the  United  States  might  not  become  too  great  and  in  order,  also, 
to  create  a  perennial  source  of  irritation  and  possible  warfare 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  That  is  to  say, 
our  ally  guaranteed  protection  and  security  to  our  enemy, 
against  us!  True,  Vergennes  would  not  go  quite  so  far  as  to 
accept  Spain's  proposal,  that  Rhode  Island  and  perhaps  New 
York,  too,  should  also  be  guaranteed  to  Great  Britain,  because, 
he  said,  France  had  already  recognized  the  independence  of  the 
Thirteen  Colonies,  including  Rhode  Island  and  New  York. 
But,  he  added,  "We  are  very  far  from  desiring  that  the  nascent 
republic  should  remain  the  exclusive  mistress  of  all  that  immense 
continent. ' '  Expectation  and  hope  were  combined  in  his  proph 
ecy  to  Montmorin  that  the  United  States  would  "never  be  any 
thing  more  than  a  feeble  body,  capable  of  little  activity." 

The  Spanish  attitude  toward  America  was  further  and  un 
mistakably  revealed  in  the  declaration  of  Florida  Blanca,  shortly 
before  the  making  of  the  treaty  with  France.  "The  king,  my 
master,"  he  said,  "will  never  acknowledge  their  independence 
until  the  English  themselves  shall  be  forced  to  recognize  it  by 
the  peace.  He  fears  the  example  which  he  should  otherwise 
give  to  his  own  possessions."  It  was  with  that  understanding 
that  the  treaty  was  made.  France  bound  herself  to  invade 
Great  Britain  or  Ireland,  to  help  Spain  recover  Gibraltar,  Mi 
norca,  Florida,  the  Bay  of  Honduras,  and  the  coast  of  Cam- 
peche,  and,  if  she  should  gain  Newfoundland  for  herself,  to 
share  its  fisheries  with  Spain  alone  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
United  States.  France,  moreover,  expressly  bound  herself  not 
to  make  peace  nor  even  to  grant  a  suspension  of  hostilities  with 
England  until  Gibraltar  should  have  been  restored  to  Spain. 
On  the  other  hand,  Spain  was  authorized  to  require,  as  the  price 
of  her  friendship,  that  the  United  States  should  renounce  all 
frontage  on  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
all  navigation  of  or  even  approach  to  the  Mississippi,  and  even 
the  possession  of  any  land  west  of  the  Allegheny  Mountains! 
Thus  within  little  more  than  a  year  after  making  her  treaties 


THE  REVOLUTION  89 

with  the  United  States,  France  assented  to  and  even  urged  a 
scheme  for  restricting  this  country  forever  to  the  petty  coast 
strip  occupied  by  the  colonies  before  the  French  and  Indian 
War.  She  also  modified,  if  not  superseded,  her  pledge  not  to 
make  peace  with  England  until  our  independence  was  granted, 
with  a  pledge  to  another  nation  not  to  make  such  peace  until  its 
ends  were  gained.  That  was  a  practical  fulfilment  of  Gerard's 
warning  that  as  between  Spain  and  America,  France  would  side 
with  Spain.  In  that  treaty  France  deliberately  sacrificed  Amer 
ican  interests  in  behalf  of  Spain,  and  gave  the  amplest  justifica 
tion  for  the  disregard  of  French  interests  which  Jay,  Adams, 
and  Franklin  afterward  displayed  in  the  making  of  the  treaty 
of  Paris  in  1783.  There  are  few  more  satisfactory  chapters  in 
our  history  than  those  which  tell  how  George  Rogers  Clark  baf 
fled  the  designs  of  Spain  by  winning  our  frontage  on  the  Mis 
sissippi,  and  how  the  three  peace  commissioners  at  Paris  baf 
fled  France's  malevolence  by  making  the  peace  treaty  without 
the  consent  or  even  the  knowledge  of  the  French  government. 

The  coming  of  Gerard  to  America  as  the  first  French  minister 
was  hailed  with  much  joy  and  exultation,  and  rightly  so.  It 
was  an  incident  of  great  value  to  America.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
also  fraught  with  possibilities  of  mischief  and  ruin  ^J&is  coun 
try,  and  we  have  cause  to  be  grateful  that  there  wer&  in  Con 
gress  and  in  the  army  men  wise  enough  to  discern  the  meaning 
of  Gerard's  suggestions  and  the  mischievous  character  of  his 
advice.  We  have  already  cited  some  of  his  utterances.  He 
also  told  Congress  that  if  America  did  not  abandon  all  preten 
sions  to  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  and  concede  to  Spain  a 
monopoly  of  that  river,  Spain  might  join  England  against  the 
United  States.  He  added  that  if  France  had  to  choose  between 
an  alliance  with  Spain  and  one  with  America,  she  would  choose 
Spain  and  let  America  go.  America,  he  said,  must  not  expect 
to  have  her  independence  recognized  by  England  for  a  long 
time  to  come.  Thus  Holland's  independence  had  not  even  yet 
been  formally  recognized  by  Spain,  nor  had  that  of  Switzerland. 
The  latter  country  enjoyed  its  "sovereignty  and  independence 
only  under  the  guarantee  of  France."  His  intimation,  and 
doubtless  Vergennes's  intention,  was  that  the  United  States 
should  be  content  with  a  similar  status.  Indeed  Vergennes,  in 


90  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

his  instructions  to  Gerard,  expressly  declared  that  should  the 
United  States  become  independent,  it  should  be  so  hemmed  in 
by  foreign  powers  as  to  be  forever  dependent  upon  France  for 
the  maintenance  of  its  nominal  independence.  England  was  to 
keep  Canada.  Spain  was  to  have  a  monopoly  of  the  Mississippi 
River.  The  United  States  was  to  be  excluded  from  the  North 
Atlantic  fisheries,  which  were  to  be  divided  between  France  and 
England. 

Well  might  America  at  that  time  have  prayed  to  be  saved 
from  her  professed  friends!  France  had  intervened  ostensibly 
in  her  behalf,  not  so  much  to  help  her  as  to  prevent  her  from 
winning  too  great  a  victory  and  from  becoming  too  powerful  a 
nation.  It  was  not  that  France  loved  America,  and  wished  to 
help  her,  but  rather  that  she  feared  her  and  wished  to  cripple 
her  and  stunt  her  growing  power.  Happily,  America  did  not 
accept  all  of  Gerard's  pernicious  counsel,  though  it  did  accept 
enough  to  cause  it  some  loss  and  future  trouble.  Thus  it  re 
nounced  its  claims  upon  Nova  Scotia  and  Bermuda,  and  for  the 
time  waived  its  rights  to  the  North  Atlantic  fisheries.  Had  it 
not  been  for  this,  Bermuda  would  have  become  a  possession  of 
this  Union,  as  the  correspondence  of  the  Tuckers — a  Bermuda 
family — shows,  and  the  subsequent  controversies  over  the  fish 
eries  would  have  been  avoided.  Congress  did  refuse  to  sacrifice 
the  Northwest  Territory  and  the  frontage  on  and  navigation  of 
the  upper  part  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  it  was  because  of 
that  refusal  that  Spain  declined  to  lend  money  to  the  United 
States.  This  was  made  clear  when  John  Jay  went  to  Spain  in 
1781,  to  negotiate  a  treaty  and  secure  a  loan.  Congress  in 
structed  him  to  offer  to  guarantee  Spain's  possession  of  Florida, 
and  also  to  concede  to  Spain  the  monopoly  of  the  Mississippi 
below  the  thirty-first  parallel  of  latitude.  There  was  even  a 
suggestion  that  he  might,  if  necessary,  agree  to  surrender  to 
Spain  everything  west  of  the  Allegheny  Mountains,  including 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois.  But  John 
Jay  was  too  great  a  statesman  and  patriot  to  act  upon  such  in 
sane  instructions.  He  never  revealed  them  to  Spain,  but  sought 
a  treaty  on  honorable  and  prudent  terms;  wherefore  Spain  re 
fused  to  make  any,  or  even  to  recognize  him  as  an  official  envoy. 

To  return  to  the  French  treaty  with  America.     That  was 


THE  REVOLUTION  91 

made  in  the  winter  of  Valley  Forge.  That  was  a  time  when 
America  needed  immediate  help,  if  ever  she  needed  it  or  was  to 
get  it.  But  such  help,  in  the  form  of  military  or  naval  suc 
cors,  was  not  forthcoming.  We  have  already  seen  how,  long 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution,  France  waited  before  she 
gave  us  recognition.  A  similar  delay  occurred  after  recognition 
before  actual  assistance  was  given.  The  treaties  were  made  at 
the  beginning  of  February.  They  were  kept  secret  until  the 
middle  of  March.  Then  war  was  declared  between  France  and 
England.  But  it  was  not  until  July  8,  nearly  four  months  later, 
that  the  first  French  ships  reached  Delaware  Bay,  bearing  an 
army  of  four  thousand  men  and  also  Gerard,  the  French  minis 
ter.  Meantime,  without  any  aid,  the  Americans  had  emerged 
from  Valley  Forge,  had  compelled  the  British  to  leave  Philadel 
phia,  and  had  fought  the  important  battle  of  Monmouth.  When 
the  French  fleet  reached  the  Capes  of  the  Delaware,  the  British 
were  in  possession  of  only  two  important  places  in  all  the 
United  States,  namely,  New  York  and  Newport.  Nor  even  then 
did  the  French  act  promptly  for  finishing  up  the  war.  The 
capture  of  Newport  was  attempted  by  the  Americans  at  the  end 
of  July,  but  the  French  failed  to  cooperate  and  the  attack  failed. 
A  siege  of  Newport  was  maintained  until  the  end  of  August, 
but  the  French  did  nothing  toward  it  and  it  had  to  be  aban 
doned.  Indeed,  practically  nothing  was  done  by  the  French  to 
aid  us,  in  all  that  first  year  of  the  alliance,  save  to  lend  us 
money;  though  all  the  time  Gerard  was  busy  with  his  evil 
counsels  to  Congress,  trying  to  get  the  young  republic  to  com 
mit  suicide  in  its  cradle. 

The  next  year,  1779,  was  even  less  profitable  to  the  American 
cause,  and  was  marked  with  even  less  helpfulness  on  the  part 
of  our  French  allies.  Wayne  stormed  Stony  Point,  but  had  no 
French  aid  in  doing  so.  Paul  Jones  startled  the  world  with  his 
fight  off  Flamborough  Head,  but  the  French  cooperation  there 
was  more  harmful  than  helpful  to  him.  France  busied  herself 
with  helping  Spain  in  futile  assaults  upon  Gibraltar,  to  the 
neglect  of  America,  to  whom  her  aid  had  first  been  pledged.  It 
is  true  that  the  loyal  and  gallant  Lafayette  showed  himself  as 
devoted  to  the  American  cause,  and  as  energetic  in  it,  as  Wash 
ington  himself.  But  how  was  he  regarded  in  France?  He 


92  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

went  thither  in  February,  1779,  to  secure  more  aid  for  America, 
but  was  received  by  the  king  with  grave  displeasure,  and  was 
actually  sent  to  prison  for  a  week,  to  punish  him  for  his  interest 
in  American  independence.  The  queen,  it  is  true,  treated  him 
with  favor,  and  expressed  sympathy  with  America;  but  more 
on  grounds  of  girlish  sentiment  than  on  those  of  conviction  or 
political  reason  and  policy.  So  that  year  passed,  and  the  war 
lagged.  In  fact,  the  French  alliance  was  doing  far  more  harm 
than  good.  The  wearied  Americans  had  been  led  to  expect  prac 
tical  aid  in  battle,  and  had  thus  been  tempted  to  relax  their 
own  efforts  and  to  secure  for  themselves  a  little  of  the  rest  which 
they  so  sorely  needed.  " There  is  a  just  God,"  Patrick  Henry 
had  said,  "who  will  raise  up  friends  to  fight  our  battles  for  us." 
The  Americans,  exhausted  after  the  herculean  exertions  of  Val 
ley  Forge  and  Monmouth,  trusted  to  those  friends  to  fight  their 
battles  for  them,  and  the  result  was  that  the  battles  were  not 
fought,  or  were  lost.  It  is  by  no  means  beyond  bounds  of  rea 
sonable  supposition  that  if  the  Americans  had  not  been  de 
luded  by  expectations  of  immediate  French  aid  in  battle,  they 
would  themselves  have  fought  the  war  to  a  victorious  ending  in 
1779,  or  at  latest  in  1780. 

That  was  not  to  be.  While  the  Americans  vainly  waited 
for  the  expected  aid,  British  activities  were  renewed  and  dis 
aster  came  to  the  Americans  in  the  South,  and  Arnold's  treason 
was  being  planned  in  the  North.  Lafayette  did  his  best  for  us. 
He  remained  in  France  for  more  than  a  year,  daily  urging  that 
an  army  of  at  least  12,000  men  be  sent  to  America,  not  under 
a  French  general  to  cooperate  with  Washington,  but  to  be  in 
corporated  directly  with  Washington's  army  and  to  serve  di 
rectly  under  his  command.  In  this  he  was  energetically  sec 
onded  by  the  gallant  but  ill-fated  Admiral  d'Estaing.  All  he 
could  secure,  however,  was  a  promise  from  Vergennes,  to  be 
repeated  to  the  American  government,  that  some  help  would  be 
sent,  and  with  that  he  returned  to  this  country,  in  April,  1780. 
Three  months  later  Ternay's  fleet,  with  Rochambeau's  army  of 
6,000  men,  reached  Newport,  and  lay  there,  bottled  up  and 
idle,  for  a  year.  Vergennes  meant  to  send  6,000  more,  thus 
fulfilling  Lafayette's  request,  but  the  British  fleet  prevented  him 
from  doing  so.  That  year,  while  Ternay  lay  idle  and  helpless 


THE  REVOLUTION  93 

at  Newport,  was  one  of  the  most  disastrous  to  the  Americans  in 
the  whole  war.  Lincoln  surrendered  to  Clinton  at  Charleston, 
the  incompetent  Gates  was  defeated  at  Camden,  and  Arnold 
sought  to  betray  West  Point  to  the  British.  In  such  circum 
stances,  Ternay  wrote  from  Newport  to  Vergennes  that  the  out 
come  of  the  Revolution  was  still  doubtful,  and  that  the  American 
cause  had  not  made  nearly  as  much  progress  as  Europeans  sup 
posed. 

Early  in  1781,  however,  the  Americans  began  to  recover  from 
their  deplorable  dependence  upon  French  aid,  and  to  act  upon 
the  principle  that  ''who  would  be  free,  themselves  must  strike 
the  blow!"  Greene  and  Morgan  set  about  recouping  the  losses 
suffered  under  Gates,  and  by  midsummer  it  was  evident  that 
the  Americans  were  at  last  surely  working  out  their  own  salva 
tion.  The  chief  aid  given  by  France  in  the  first  half  of  the  year 
was  indirect  though  not  without  material  value.  A  great  fleet 
was  sent  out  under  De  Grasse,  to  attack  Jamaica  and  seize  it 
for  Spain.  In  that  design  it  was  unsuccessful.  But  it  per 
formed  the  valuable  service  of  diverting  British  attention  from 
the  United  States  to  the  West  Indies,  and  of  drawing  toward 
the  latter  the  British  armaments  which  might  otherwise  have 
been  directed  against  our  shores.  At  the  middle  of  August  the 
French  fleet  came  from  the  West  Indies  toward  the  Chesapeake 
Bay,  reaching  the  latter  at  the  end  of  the  month.  It  is  to  be 
noted,  however,  that  this  was  done  not  primarily  to  aid  America 
but  to  promote  the  French  and  Spanish  interests  in  the  West  In 
dies,  the  theory  being  that  a  French  naval  demonstration  on  the 
coast  of  Virginia  would  attract  British  attention  thither  and 
thus  aid  the  anti-British  campaign  in  the  West  Indies.  Mean 
time,  Lafayette,  with  a  skill  and  heroism  rarely  equaled,  kept 
Cornwallis  cooped  up  at  Yorktown  until  Washington,  with 
Rochambeau's  army  from  Newport  added  to  his  own,  made  his 
wonderful  rush  from  the  Hudson  to  the  Chesapeake.  Then  the 
end  quickly  came.  While  the  French  fleet  kept  guard  off  shore, 
the  French  allies  on  land  helped  Washington  to  press  his  lines 
nearer  and  nearer  to  Cornwallis 's  defenses,  until  at  last,  on 
October  17,  the  white  flag  went  up,  and  on  October  19  Corn 
wallis  surrendered;  and  the  Revolution  was  all  over,  save  the 
determination  of  the  exact  bases  of  peace. 


94  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  story,  however,  we  must  briefly 
consider  the  attitude  of  other  powers  toward  America,  and  the 
American  relations  with  them,  during  the  actual  war  of  the 
Revolution,  as  distinguished  from  the  time  of  peace-making  at 
the  end.  Prussia  during  the  Seven  Years'  War  had  risen  to 
a  place  among  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  and  her  favor  and 
assistance  were  much  desired  by  the  Americans.  It  was  thought 
that  there  would  be  a  possibility  of  enlisting  the  active  sympathy 
of  Frederick  the  Great  in  the  American  cause,  partly  because 
of  the  liberal  views  which  he  held  in  strange  connection  with 
his  absolutism,  and  partly  because  he  was  much  exasperated 
against  England  for  what  he  regarded  as  her  desertion  of  him 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  Seven  Years'  War.  Arthur  Lee  was 
accordingly  sent  to  Berlin  as  the  American  envoy.  He  was  of 
all  men  one  of  the  least  fitted  for  diplomacy,  and  it  may  be  that 
his  unfitness  was  the  cause  of  the  failure  of  his  mission.  He  was 
hospitably  treated  by  Frederick's  minister,  Baron  Schulenberg, 
but  was  not  received  by  Frederick  himself  and  never  secured 
official  recognition  as  an  accredited  envoy.  In  the  fall  of  1777 
and  spring  of  1778,  it  is  true,  Frederick  refused  to  let  the  mer 
cenaries  of  other  German  States  pass  through  Prussia  on  their 
way  to  America  as  hirelings  of  the  British.  But  it  was  quite 
clear  that  he  did  so  not  because  of  a  wish  to  protect  America 
so  much  as  because  of  his  contempt  for  and  detestation  of  the 
mercenary  system.  He  expressed  great  interest  in  Washing 
ton's  victory  over  the  British  and  Hessians  at  Trenton,  but  it 
was  admiration  for  Washington's  military  genius  rather  than 
gratification  at  the  result.  So  great  a  soldier  as  he  could  not 
have  helped  appreciating  and  admiring  that  performance  of 
Washington's,  which  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  effective 
in  the  whole  history  of  warfare.  There  has  long  been  extant  a 
story  that  Frederick  sent  to  Washington  at  that  time  a  sword, 
inscribed  "From  the  Oldest  General  to  the  Greatest."  It  is 
possible  that  he  did  so,  but  the  story  does  not  seem  ever  to  have 
been  satisfactorily  authenticated. 

Frederick,  through  Baron  Schulenberg,  did  indeed  promise 
Lee,  in  January,  1778,  that  Prussia  would  recognize  American 
independence  whenever  France  did  so.  But  the  promise  was 
not  kept.  France  soon  afterward  made  her  treaties  with 


THE  REVOLUTION  95 

America,  but  Frederick  merely  renewed  his  promise  without 
fulfilling  it.  He  wrote  to  Franklin,  in  Paris,  that  he  would 
probably  soon  recognize  American  independence,  but  that  recog 
nition  did  not  come.  He  would  not  even  open  his  port  of  Em- 
den  to  American  warships  and  their  prizes,  for  the  reason  that 
he  did  not  feel  strong  enough  to  defend  and  maintain  its  neu 
trality  against  British  resentment,  seeing  how  open  that  port 
was  to  British  attacks.  He  did,  however,  open  his  ports  to 
American  merchantmen,  and  he  finally  opened  his  Baltic  port 
of  Dantzig,  which  was  less  exposed  than  Emden  to  attack  from 
Great  Britain,  to  American  warships;  by  which  act  he  in  a 
measure,  by  implication,  recognized  the  belligerent  status  of 
America.  It  is  possible  that  he  would  have  gone  further  and 
would  have  given  the  United  States  full  recognition,  but  for  the 
fact  that  he  presently  became  involved  in  a  grave  dispute  con 
cerning  the  succession  to  the  Bavarian  crown,  in  which  as  the 
champion  of  Germany  he  was  constrained  to  join  with  Saxony 
in  resisting  Austrian  aggressions,  and  in  which  the  cultivation 
of  friendly  relations  with  England  seemed  necessary.  "At  this 
moment,"  he  wrote,  "the  affairs  of  England  with  her  colonies 
disappear  from  my  eyes/'  Again,  in  response  to  Arthur  Lee's 
importunities  for  recognition  as  the  minister  of  the  United 
States  at  the  Prussian  court,  he  said:  "We  are  so  occupied 
with  Germany  that  we  cannot  think  of  the  Americans.  We 
should  be  heartily  glad  to  recognize  them,  but  at  this  present 
moment  it  would  do  them  no  good,  and  to  us  might  be  very 
detrimental.''  Thereafter  Frederick  so  far  modified  his  re 
sentment  against  England  as  to  permit  the  passage  of  a  few 
mercenaries  through  his  dominions  on  their  way  to  America, 
and  he  promised  to  protect  Hanover  from  French  attacks.  But 
he  steadfastly  refused  to  make  any  alliance  with  Great  Britain. 
His  attitude  until  the  end  of  the  war  was  one  of  cold  indiffer 
ence  toward  the  American  struggle.  Germany  was  his  world, 
and  beyond  the  borders  of  the  Fatherland  his  sympathies  and 
interests  did  not  extend.  He  wrote  truly  to  his  brother  con 
cerning  relations  with  America  and  England,  "I  propose  to 
procrastinate  in  these  negotiations,  and  go  over  to  the  side  on 
which  Fortune  shall  declare  herself." 

We  have  already  considered  the  attitude  of  Russia  in  1775-76, 


96  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

and  have  seen  that  it  was  in  no  respect  sympathetic  toward 
America,  but  rather  inclined  to  the  British  side.  The  fact  that 
Kosciuscko,  Pulaski,  and  other  Poles,  who  certainly  had  no  love 
for  Russia,  promptly  allied  themselves  with  the  American  cause, 
was  also  an  indication  that  Russia  was  more  hostile  than  friendly 
to  America.  There  were,  however,  still  stronger  manifestations 
of  Russia's  preference  for  England.  Early  in  1778  the  British 
ambassador  to  Russia,  Sir  James  Harris,  afterward  Earl  of 
Malmesbury,  began  negotiations  for  a  close  alliance  between  Great 
Britain  and  Russia,  to  offset  the  Franco-American  alliance, 
which  lasted  practically  until  the  end  of  the  Revolution.  It  is 
true  that  the  alliance  was  not  made,  though  it  came  very  near 
consummation.  Catherine  the  Great  was  an  admirer  of  Vol 
taire  and  of  Charles  James  Fox,  and  her  minister,  Count  Panin, 
was  little  more  than  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  whose  feelings  toward  the  British  government  were  not 
amiable.  For  these  reasons  Catherine  hesitated  to  show  favor 
to  the  ministry  of  Lord  North.  Nevertheless,  neither  she  nor 
any  of  her  court  ever  expressed  any  sympathy  with  America. 
On  the  contrary,  her  favorite  lover,  Prince  Potemkin,  who  had 
more  influence  than  most  of  her  ministers,  intimated  to  Sir 
James  Harris  that  the  desired  alliance  of  Russia  with  Great 
Britain,  against  France  and  America,  would  be  made  if  Great 
Britain  would  give  to  Russia  the  Mediterranean  island  of  Mi 
norca.  The  British  government  hesitated.  It  wanted  Russia, 
as  an  ally,  but  it  did  not  relish  the  idea  of  letting  her  have  that 
important  island  and  thus  establish  herself  as  a  power  in  the 
Mediterranean  Sea.  So  the  negotiations  were  prolonged,  Rus 
sia  demanding  Minorca  as  the  price  of  her  alliance  and  Great 
Britain  striving  and  hoping  to  persuade  her  to  be  content  with 
a  less  price.  Finally,  in  1781,  Great  Britain  yielded  and  agreed 
to  give  her  Minorca.  But  it  was  then  too  late.  Russia  had  en 
tered  into  other  relations,  and  would  not  make  the  alliance  even 
on  these  terms. 

Russia  did,  however,  render  to  Great  Britain  a  signal  service. 
We  have  seen  that  in  1775,  while  declining  to  provide  a  mer 
cenary  army  for  his  uses — saying  that  she  would  like  to  do  so 
but  was  physically  unable — Catherine  assured  King  George  that 
she  would  gladly  aid  him  against  America  in  any  way  she  could. 


THE  REVOLUTION  97 

That  promise  was  fulfilled  in  1778.  Early  in  that  year  France 
recognized  American  independence  and  formed  an  American 
alliance.  Thereupon  Catherine,  through  Count  Panin,  assured 
King  George,  through  Sir  James  Harris,  that  so  long  as  Great 
Britain  treated  the  Americans  as  rebels,  Russia  would  refuse  to 
recognize  their  independence.  That  promise  was  faithfully  ful 
filled.  Russia  did  in  fact  refuse  to  recognize  American  inde 
pendence  until  long  after  it  had  been  recognized  elsewhere. 
Great  Britain  herself  recognized  American  independence  and 
entered  into  treaty  relations  with  the  United  States  long  before 
Russia  did.  Nor  was  that  all.  In  December,  1780,  Congress 
sent  the  accomplished  Francis  Dana  as  American  envoy  to  St. 
Petersburg,  and  instructed  him  to  engage,  if  possible,  the  Rus 
sian  empress  "to  favor  and  support  the  sovereignty  and  inde 
pendence  of  the  United  States,"  to  secure  the  admission  of  the 
United  States  as  a  party  to  the  conventions  of  the  neutral  mari 
time  powers,  and  to  establish  friendly  relations  between  the  two 
countries.  He  was  also  to  seek  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce 
with  Russia  similar  in  spirit  to  that  which  had  been  made  with 
France.  He  was  not,  however,  at  once  to  announce  his  public 
character,  but  was  first  to  find  out  privately  from  the  French 
minister  at  St.  Petersburg  the  disposition  of  the  Russian  court 
toward  America. 

Dana  was  at  this  time  in  Paris,  serving  as  secretary  to  John 
Adams.  On  receiving  his  instructions  he  applied  to  Adams 
and  Franklin  for  advice,  and  by  Franklin  was  referred  to  Ver- 
gennes.  The  latter  discouraged  him  so  far  as  he  could  from 
undertaking  the  mission,  saying  that  he  did  not  approve  of  his 
going  to  Russia  in  his  public  character  and  advising  him  to  con 
sult  the  Russian  minister  at  The  Hague  concerning  the  pro 
priety  of  his  going  privately.  Franklin  also  gave  Dana  little 
encouragement.  Adams,  on  the  other  hand,  urged  him  to  set 
out  at  once  for  St.  Petersburg  according  to  his  instructions, 
and  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Russian  minister  at  The 
Hague  or  with  any  one  else  connected  with  the  Russian  govern 
ment  until  he  met  the  French  ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg. 
Dana  accepted  this  advice  and  acted  upon  it,  reaching  St.  Peters 
burg  in  August,  1781. 

There  he  placed  himself  in  communication  with  the  French 

VOL.    1—7 


98  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

minister,  the  Marquis  de  Verac.  The  latter  had  probably  re 
ceived  from  Vergennes  information  of  Dana's  coming  and  in 
structions  as  to  how  to  receive  him.  He  wrote  to  Dana  that  he 
must  not  make  his  mission  known  nor  make  any  advances  to 
the  Russian  court,  for  Russia  would  not  recognize  the  minister 
of  a  power  which  had  not  yet,  in  Russian  eyes,  any  political  ex 
istence.  This  was  not  pleasing  to  Dana  and  he  replied  to  Verac 
that  he  intended  to  communicate  confidentially  with  the  Russian 
foreign  minister  and  to  seek,  through  him,  to  present  a  memorial 
to  the  empress.  Verac  in  return  told  Dana  bluntly  that  Russia 
and  the  other  neutral  powers  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
United  States  until  its  independence  had  been  acknowledged  by 
Great  Britain.  At  this  Dana  decided  to  wait  until  he  could  re 
ceive  further  advices. 

It  was  Dana's  not  unreasonable  conviction  that  the  French 
government  was  jealous  of  his  attempt  to  secure  from  Russia 
recognition  of  American  independence.  Vergennes,  however, 
declared  that  the  French  government  simply  wished  to  save 
Dana  and  America  from  receiving  a  humiliating  rebuff  from  the 
Russian  court.  Russia,  he  said,  would  have  little  to  gain  from 
the  independence  of  the  United  States,  since  American  products 
would  compete  with  those  of  Russia  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 
Moreover,  the  empress,  as  an  absolute  monarch,  detested  revolu 
tions  and  could  not  be  expected  to  aid  or  countenance  one. 
These  plausible  explanations  were  accepted  by  Congress  and 
its  secretary  for  foreign  affairs,  Livingston,  and  Dana  was  ac 
cordingly  instructed  not  to  present  his  letter  of  credence  to  the 
Russian  court  until  he  had  obtained  some  assurance  of  its  favor 
able  acceptance. 

When  at  last  news  came  that  the  preliminary  treaty  of  peace 
had  been  signed  by  the  British  and  American  commissioners, 
Dana  was  overjoyed  and  expected  that  at  last  he  would  be  recog 
nized  and  received.  In  this,  however,  he  was  doomed  to  disap 
pointment.  Verac  insisted  that  he  must  wait  until  the  final 
treaty  was  signed  and  until  the  attitude  of  the  other  European 
powers  was  ascertained.  On  March  5,  1783,  a  confidential  mes 
senger  from  the  empress  informed  Dana  that  he  might  communi 
cate  his  mission  to  one  of  her  ministers  at  any  time,  though  he 
might  not  receive  a  prompt  answer.  Two  days  later,  therefore, 


THE  REVOLUTION  99 

he  communicated  his  mission  to  Count  Ostermann,  the  minister 
for  foreign  affairs,  and  requested  an  audience  with  the  empress. 
Ostermann  seems  to  have  revealed  this  to  Sir  James  Harris, 
the  British  ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  who  at  once,  on  his 
own  authority,  protested  against  any  Russian  negotiations  with 
an  American  minister  until  the  final  treaty  was  made  and  rati 
fied;  adding  that  for  Russia  to  do  so  would  certainly  alienate 
Great  Britain  forever.  In  reply,  Harris  received  assurances 
from  the  empress  herself  that  no  American  agent  would  be  re 
ceived  until  after  the  ratification  of  the  final  treaty,  or  until 
Great  Britain  herself  received  one. 

Thereafter  Ostermann  adopted  a  policy  of  delay  toward  Dana, 
refusing  to  see  him  for  more  than  a  month.  Finally  he  informed 
Dana  that  the  empress  would  not  receive  him  until  the  making 
of  a  definitive  treaty  by  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Spain ;  that 
even  then  Dana  must  have  a  letter  of  credence  dated  since  the 
making  of  such  a  treaty,  and  since  the  date  at  which  the  em 
press  should  herself  recognize  American  independence;  and 
finally  that  an  American  minister  would  not  be  received  by  her 
until  one  had  been  received  by  the  King  of  England.  Dana  re 
quested  Ostermann  to  put  these  conditions  in  writing,  but  the 
Russian  refused  to  do  so.  A  fortnight  later  Dana  made  a  vig 
orous  written  reply  to  Ostermann,  protesting  against  all  these 
conditions  and  arguing  that  they  were  contrary  to  international 
law.  He  added  that  these  were  simply  his  private  sentiments 
and  not  an  official  expression  of  the  views  of  Congress.  To 
this  Ostermann  made  no  reply,  but  in  a  personal  interview  some 
time  later  he  protested  that  Dana  had  misunderstood  the  atti 
tude  of  the  empress. 

The  making  of  peace  lessened  the  desire  of  Congress  for  the 
establishment  of  relations  with  Russia  and  in  April,  1783,  Con 
gress  adopted  a  resolution  authorizing  Dana  to  return  home, 
provided  he  was  not  at  the  time  engaged  in  negotiations  with 
the  Russian  government.  Dana  wrote  in  reply  to  Livingston 
that  he  was  persuaded  that  no  treaty  with  Russia  could  be  ob 
tained  without  going  to  the  pecuniary  expense  to  which  other 
powers  were  put  in  such  matters ;  and  that  as  Congress  had  not 
authorized  such  procedure  he  would  return  to  the  United  States 
as  soon  as  possible.  He  also  wrote  to  Ostermann  that  on  account 


100  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  ill  health  and  private  affairs  he  had  secured  the  permission 
of  Congress  to  return  home  and  therefore  would  not  trouble  the 
empress  further  about  an  audience.  Shortly  afterward  he  left 
St.  Petersburg  and  returned  home.  He  did  not  go  to  Russia 
again  and  no  one  was  sent  thither  to  replace  him.  Congress 
passed  a  resolution  in  April,  1784,  to  the  effect  that  it  would  be 
advantageous  to  make  a  treaty  with  Russia,  and  in  1785  John 
Adams  wrote  from  London  that  the  Russian  ambassador  there 
had  several  times  asked  why  none  was  made.  But  nothing  in 
that  direction  was  actually  done. 

Again  in  1782,  in  the  closing  months  of  the  War  for  Inde 
pendence,  the  Count  du  Nord,  a  son  of  Empress  Catherine, 
visited  the  Russian  minister,  Prince  Bariatinski,  in  Paris.  He 
at  once  entered  into  social  relations  with  all  the  foreign  ministers 
there  excepting  only  Franklin,  the  American  minister.  When 
one  day  the  prince's  servant  sent  the  count's  and  the  prince's 
cards  to  Franklin,  as  to  all  foreign  envoys,  and  Franklin  in  re 
turn  called  at  the  prince's  house  and  signed  his  name  in  the 
visiting  book,  there  was  a  tremendous  row.  The  servant  was 
in  danger  of  losing  his  place  for  his  blunder,  and  the  prince  took 
extraordinary  pains  to  hush  the  matter  up,  not  wishing  it  to  be 
known  that  he  and  the  count  had,  even  to  that  extent,  and  that 
unintentionally  and  through  a  blunder,  recognized  the  Ameri 
can  envoy !  And  that  was  at  a  time  when  nearly  all  other  for 
eign  representatives  were  going  out  of  their  way  to  pay  re 
spects  to  Franklin!  The  case  was  ended  by  Franklin's  con 
temptuously  burning  up  the  Russian  prince's  card  and  sending 
him  word  to  erase  his  name  from  the  book.  At  almost  the  same 
moment  when  the  Russian  nobles  were  acting  in  such  fashion, 
the  King  of  Denmark  was  inviting  Franklin  to  dine  with  him, 
and  the  Swedish  minister  was,  at  his  sovereign's  command, 
seeking  to  make  a  treaty  with  America  through  him. 

Even  that  is  not  all.  At  about  the  same  time  Franklin  re 
ceived  a  letter  from  Mr.  Dana,  at  St.  Petersburg,  reporting  that 
the  news  that  Holland  had  recognized  American  independence 
had  given  a  shock  at  the  Russian  capital  and  had  not  been  well 
received.  Again,  John  Adams,  at  The  Hague,  in  a  letter  to 
Franklin  in  June,  1782,  expressed  his  suspicion  that  Russia  was 
making  intrigues  in  England's  favor.  Many  other  historical 


THE  REVOLUTION  1XXL 

evidences  to  the  same  purport  might  be  cited,  were  it  necessary. 
But  these  indications  of  Russia's  lack  of  sympathy  for,  if  not  of 
actual  hostility  to,  America  will  in  the  absence  of  a  single  mark 
of  sympathy  be  sufficient. 

The  so-called  Armed  Neutrality  deserves  attention  at  this 
point,  as  an  interesting  factor  in  the  Revolution,  and  as  the 
basis  of  some  entirely  unwarranted  pretenses  of  Russian  friend 
ship  and  aid  for  America.  A  too-common  conception  of  the 
Armed  Neutrality  is  that  Russia,  for  the  sake  of  aiding  America, 
conceived  and  promulgated  the  doctrine  "free  ships  make  free 
goods, "  and  organized  a  continental  alliance  to  maintain  that 
principle  against  Great  Britain.  It  would  be  difficult  to  form 
a  greater  misconception.  The  principle  in  question  was  first 
enunciated  by  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia,  in  1752,  and  he 
alone  is  entitled  to  the  credit  therefor.  In  the  summer  of  1778, 
when  the  war  between  France  and  Great  Britain  had  begun  and 
the  British  fleet  was  taking  great  liberties  with  the  commerce  of 
all  nations  on  the  high  seas  with  the  view  of  preventing  com 
merce  with  the  American  States,  the  French  government  recalled 
that  declaration  of  Frederick's,  and  conceived  the  notion  that 
it  would  be  a  good  stroke  to  have  it  adopted  as  a  rule  of  inter 
national  law  by  a  combination  of  powers  too  great  for  England 
to  defy.  The  British  navy  was  then  overhauling  Prussian, 
Swedish,  Danish,  and  Dutch  ships,  particularly,  and  those  coun 
tries  would  doubtless  gladly  join  such  a  combination.  But  not 
one  of  those  countries  seemed  quite  suited  for  the  leadership  of 
the  movement.  Russia  would  have  made  a  good  leader.  But 
Russia  was  on  friendly  terms  with  England  and  at  the  point 
of  making  an  alliance  with  her,  and  the  British  navy  was,  more 
over,  under  specific  instructions  not  to  molest  or  in  any  way  in 
terfere  with  Russian  ships.  At  the  outset,  then,  it  seemed  im 
possible  to  get  Russia  to  assume  the  lead  in  the  desired  move 
ment. 

The  astute  French  ministers,  however,  soon  found  a  way  to 
attain  their  end,  through  the  use  of  Spain  as  a  cat's-paw. 
Either  at  French  instigation  or  on  their  own  initiative,  the 
Spanish  in  the  winter  of  1779-80  seized  two  Russian  ships  and 
confiscated  their  cargoes.  That  aroused  Russia's  wrath,  and, 
brought  her  close  to  the  point  of  declaring  war  against  Spain. 


102-  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

But  then,  just  in  time,  Frederick  the  Great  persuaded  the  Span 
ish  minister,  Florida  Blanca,  to  offer  the  fullest  possible  amends 
to  Russia.  He  also  suggested  to  Count  Panin,  who  was  com 
pletely  under  Frederick's  influence,  that  it  would  be  a  fine  stroke 
of  policy,  and  would  prevent  any  more  such  incidents,  for  Rus 
sia  to  proclaim  to  the  world  the  doctrine  that  Frederick  him 
self  had  enunciated  twenty-eight  years  before,  namely,  that  in 
time  of  war  all  neutral  ships  should  be  exempt  from  seizure, 
and  their  cargoes  likewise,  save  when  the  latter  consisted  of 
contraband  goods.  Panin  was  dazzled  with  the  idea,  and  flat 
tered  by  Frederick's  condescension  in  suggesting  it  to  him,  and 
he  promptly  urged  it  upon  Catherine.  The  French  govern 
ment  at  the  same  time  added  its  persuasion.  Catherine  was 
flattered  by  the  practical  offer  of  the  headship  of  a  great  Euro 
pean  league,  and  thus  with  little  difficulty  was  prevailed  upon 
to  issue  her  famous  proclamation  of  February  28-March  10, 
1780. 

That  proclamation  was  addressed,  let  us  observe,  to  the  courts 
of  London,  Versailles,  and  Madrid,  the  three  European  belliger 
ents  in  the  war.  The  fourth  belligerent,  America,  was  entirely 
ignored.  In  that  circumstance  was  an  indication  of  Russia's 
unsympathetic  attitude  toward  this  country.  To  that  we  may 
add  this  significant  fact,  that  with  all  her  professions  of  neutral 
ity  Russia  throughout  the  whole  Revolution  refused  to  give 
American  warships  access  to  her  ports.  The  ships  of  England, 
of  France,  and  of  Spain  were  permitted  to  enter  her  ports  and 
to  enjoy  there  the  privileges  of  belligerents  in  neutral  ports. 
But  the  vessels  of  the  United  States  were  rigidly  excluded.  Nor 
was  that  all.  Franklin,  in  making  the  American  treaty  with 
France,  had  inserted  therein  the  very  principle  which  Russia 
now  proclaimed.  He  urged  upon  Congress  that  America  should 
promptly  adhere  to  the  Armed  Neutrality.  Congress  complied, 
and  voted  thus  to  do,  and  John  Adams,  at  The  Hague,  was  di 
rected  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  the  European  powers  to 
that  end.  But  such  application  was  frowned  upon  by  Russia, 
and  was  rejected  by  her.  The  Armed  Neutrality  was  formed 
by  Russia,  then,  not  at  her  own  instance,  but  at  the  suggestion 
of  Prussia  and  France.  It  was  emphatically  not  formed  for 
America's  benefit,  but  on  the  contrary  America  was  specifically 


THE  REVOLUTION  103 

excluded  from  it.  It  was  not  directed  by  Russia  against  Great 
Britain,  but  against  Spain,  with  which  country  Great  Britain 
was  at  war.  Nor  was  it  maintained  in  good  faith  by  Russia,  as 
we  shall  see. 

Denmark  and  Sweden  were  the  first  to  enter  into  the  Armed 
Neutrality  alliance  with  Russia.  They  did  so  promptly  upon 
Russia's  issuance  of  the  proclamation.  Their  adherence  was 
welcome  to  Russia,  because  of  their  proximity  to  her  shore  and 
their  intimate  relations  with  her  commerce.  France  and  Spain 
also  adopted  the  principle.  The  Netherlands,  Prussia,  and  Aus 
tria  did  so  in  1781,  Portugal  in  1782,  and  the  Two  Sicilies  in 
1783.  Turkey  also  signified  her  acceptance  of  it.  Great  Brit 
ain  alone  refused  to  do  so,  and  in  fact  never  accepted  the  prin 
ciple  until  1856.  Meantime  sympathy  with  America  had  been 
growing  in  the  Netherlands.  At  the  end  of  1779  Holland  opened 
her  ports  to  American  warships,  particularly  to  Paul  Jones. 
The  thrifty  burghers  declined,  it  is  true,  to  lend  America  money 
until  France  assured  its  repayment,  because  they  were  not  yet 
sufficiently  confident  of  our  success.  Nevertheless  they  were 
willing  to  go  far  in  aiding  us.  In  1778  William  Lee,  the  Ameri 
can  commissioner,  drew  up  with  two  prominent  citizens  of  Am 
sterdam  a  draft  of  a  treaty  of  friendship  and  commerce  with 
the  United  States.  It  had  no  validity,  as  the  government  of 
Holland  was  not  even  cognizant  of  it,  and  it  was  kept  secret  for 
a  time.  But  in  October,  1780,  the  British  captured  an  Ameri 
can  ship  bound  for  Holland,  among  whose  passengers  was  Henry 
Laurens,  and  among  his  papers  was  a  draft  of  this  proposed 
treaty  which  Congress  had  approved  and  which  he  was  taking 
back  to  Holland  for  final  ratification.  The  British  government 
was  enraged.  It  peremptorily  demanded  of  the  Dutch  govern 
ment  that  it  disavow  the  treaty  and  severely  punish  the  chief 
magistrate  of  Amsterdam,  who  had  signed  it.  The  Dutch  gov 
ernment  did  repudiate  the  treaty,  but  it  could  not  constitu 
tionally  punish  the  magistrate.  The  incident  was  no  adequate 
cause  for  war  or  even  for  offense.  But  the  British  govern 
ment  was  angry  with  Holland  for  opening  her  ports  to  Ameri 
can  ships,  and  so  early  in  1781  declared  war  upon  her.  Mean 
while  Holland  had  joined  the  Armed  Neutrality.  The  Russian 
minister  to  Holland  reported  to  his  government  that  that  was 


104  AMERICA'S  FOKEIGN  RELATIONS 

the  cause  of  the  British  declaration  of  war,  which  was  perhaps 
partly  the  case.  Holland  therefore  promptly  made  appeal  to 
Eussia  for  aid  against  England,  which  Russia  was  morally 
bound  to  give.  But  England  now  offered  Minorca  to  Russia 
as  the  bribe  for  a  Russian  alliance,  and  although  Russia  did 
not  accept  the  offer  she  was  moved  to  remain  friendly  to  Eng 
land.  She  consulted  Frederick  of  Prussia,  declaring  that  she 
would  fight  England  only  if  he  would.  He  refused  to  do  so, 
whereupon  Russia  decided  to  remain  friendly  with  England,  and 
abandoned  her  ally,  Holland,  to  her  fate. 

During  the  Revolution  attempts  were  made  by  Congress  to 
enter  into  relations  with  various  other  European  powers,  espe 
cially  with  Austria  and  Tuscany,  to  the  courts  of  which  countries 
envoys  were  accredited.  The*  result  of  such  overtures  was,  how 
ever,  entirely  negative.  In  the  era  of  peace-making  at  the  close 
of  the  war  those  and  other  powers  manifested  a  strong  interest  in 
America,  fulfilling  the  saying  of  John  Adams,  that  "It  is  ob 
vious  that  all  the  powers  of  Europe  will  be  continuously  ma 
neuvering  with  us  to  work  us  into  their  real  or  imaginary  bal 
ances  of  power."  But  our  actual  foreign  relations  during  the 
actual  war  were  practically  confined  to  those  already  mentioned, 
to  wit,  Great  Britain,  France,  Spain,  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Hol 
land.  Among  them  we  had  one  ally  and  one  half-friend — the 
least  of  them  all. 


V 

FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING 

ACTUAL  preparations  for  peace-making  were  begun  long 
before  the  end  of  the  Revolution.  It  was  not  until  Octo 
ber,  1781,  that  Cornwallis  surrendered  and  thus  brought  to  a 
conclusion  the  serious  military  operations  of  the  war.  But  as 
early  as  January,  1779,  the  American  Congress  began  to  con 
sider  ways  and  means  of  peace-making,  to  formulate  the  condi 
tions  that  should  be  demanded,  to  select  the  commissioners  who 
were  to  negotiate  the  treaty,  and  to  prescribe  the  rules  by  which 
they  were  to  be  governed  in  their  work.  This  was  not  merely 
because  of  the  confidence  that  was  felt  in  the  ultimate  and  in 
deed  speedy  triumph  of  the  American  cause,  for  these  prepara 
tions  for  peace-making  were  conducted  at  a  time  when  the  out 
look  was  gloomy  and  when  a  French  officer,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
reporting  that  the  success  of  America  was  still  dubious.  It  was 
suggested  and  almost  necessitated  by  the  terms  of  our  relation 
ship  with  France.  Our  treaty  with  her  laid  upon  us  the  com 
pulsion  of  consulting  her  in  peace-making,  and  indeed  of  not 
making  peace  without  her  assent.  So  it  appropriately  came  to 
pass  that  on  January  14,  1779,  Congress  unanimously  adopted 
a  report  from  a  committee  of  which  Samuel  Adams  and  John 
Jay  were  leading  members,  to  the  effect  that  the  United  States, 
in  accordance  with  that  treaty,  would  not  conclude  a  peace  with 
Great  Britain  without  the  formal  consent  of  France. 

Such  unanimity  did  not,  however,  mark  all  the  deliberations 
of  Congress  at  that  time  in  foreign  affairs.  On  the  contrary, 
that  rapidly  degenerating  body,  which  began  as  one  of  the  best 
and  ended  as  one  of  the  worst  of  parliaments,  began  to  present 
to  the  outer  world  a  divided  and  faction-rent  front,  such  as 
might  well  have  caused  despair  to  all  but  the  most  hopeful  and 
resolute.  Whatever  the  domestic  differences  which  divide  a  peo 
ple,  in  foreign  negotiations  they  should  surely  be  united.  That 

105 


106  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

is  desirable  at  all  times.  At  so  crucial  a  time  as  that  it  was 
particularly  essential.  But  it  was  a  lesson  which  Congress  did 
not  seem  to  have  learned,  or  to  heed.  Washington,  above  all 
his  fellows,  with  that  clarity  of  vision  and  sanity  of  judgment 
which  were  the  chief  elements  of  his  genius,  perceived  the  neces 
sity  of  union,  and  realized  the  menace  of  the  divided  counsels 
that  then  prevailed.  ' '  Our  affairs, ' '  he  declared,  ' '  are  now  come 
to  a  crisis.  Unanimity,  disinterestedness,  and  perseverance  in 
our  national  duty  are  the  only  means  to  avoid  misfortunes.  .  .  . 
Nothing  can  save  us  but  a  total  reformation  in  our  own  conduct, 
or  some  decisive  turn  to  affairs  in  Europe."  He  might  even 
have  expressed  himself  more  strongly  without  exaggeration. 
There  is  only  too  much  reason  for  believing  that  Congress  suf 
fered  from  lack  not  only  of  unanimity  but  also  of  honesty. 

It  is  known  that  all  through  the  period  of  our  peace  negotia 
tions  the  French  government  regularly  subsidized  various 
American  journalists  and  other  writers,  who  were  in  return  ex 
pected  to  conduct  a  pro-Gallican  propaganda,  seeking  in  the  very 
act  of  winning  independence  from  Great  Britain  to  make 
America  a  practical  dependency  of  France.  Away  back  in  1775 
Bonvouloir  had  boasted,  "I  can  do  what  I  please  with  them!" 
meaning  that  by  bribery,  cajolery,  or  playing  upon  their  preju 
dices  and  passions,  he  could  make  Americans  subservient  to  self 
ish  French  interests.  Nor  did  such  exertion  of  alien  influence 
and  even  of  corruption  prevail  in  only  private  and  journalistic 
life.  It  entered  public  life,  official  life,  and  probably  congres 
sional  life.  Thomas  Paine,  who  had  formerly  regarded  and  de 
nounced  Vergennes  as  a  despot,  according  to  Durand  accepted 
a  subsidy  of  $1,000  a  year  from  him,  through  Luzerne,  at  the 
very  time  when  he  was  secretary  of  the  congressional  committee 
on  foreign  affairs,  and  in  return  therefor  wrote  and  worked  in 
favor  of  France  and  the  French  alliance.  Luzerne,  the  second 
French  minister  to  America,  openly  boasted  in  1781  that  he  had 
secured  the  election  of  Robert  R.  Livingston  to  the  foreign  secre 
taryship.  We  may  not  suppose  Livingston  to  have  been  privy  to 
or  aware  of  Luzerne 's  intrigues.  But  it  was  a  perilous  and  a 
disgraceful  thing  for  our  foreign  relations  to  be  thus  subject  to 
alien  influence  and  dictation.  George  Pellew  has  related,  with 
authority  which  we  can  scarcely  challenge,  that  in  after  years 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        107 

Gouverneur  Morris  and  John  Jay,  both  grown  old,  were  sitting 
after  dinner  in  Jay's  house  at  Bedford,  New  York,  recalling 
revolutionary  times  in  which  they  had  been  leading  participants 
and  of  which  they  had  unrivaled  knowledge.  "Jay,"  said 
Morris,  reflectively,  "what  a  set  of  damned  scoundrels  we  had 
in  that  second  Congress ! "  "  Yes, ' '  replied  Jay, ' '  that  we  had ! ' ' 
Such  was  the  situation,  and  such  were  Washington's  feelings, 
at  the  beginning  of  1779,  and  we  know  how  dark  the  American 
outlook  grew  thereafter  because  of  the  lack  of  the  very  qualities 
which  Washington  so  earnestly  urged  his  countrymen  to  culti 
vate.  The  lack  of  unanimity  was  painfully  obvious  to  Congress 
in  the  consideration  of  terms  of  peace.  At  the  middle  of  Feb 
ruary,  1779,  a  special  committee  of  five  was  appointed  to  formu 
late  the  American  demands.  It  consisted  of  Gouverneur  Mor 
ris  of  New  York,  Thomas  Burke  of  North  Carolina,  John  With- 
erspoon  of  New  Jersey,  Samuel  Adams  of  Massachusetts,  and 
Merewether  Smith  of  Virginia.  In  a  few  days  the  committee 
reported  in  favor  of  demanding,  as  ultimata,  that  the  United 
States  should  have  the  Northwest  and  Southwest  territories  clear 
to  the  Mississippi,  and  should  have  not  only  a  frontage  on  but 
free  navigation  of  that  river  from  its  source  down  to  the  Florida 
line,  with  further  navigation  through  to  the  Gulf  and  the  use  of 
a  port  on  Spanish  soil  near  its  mouth ;  but  that  the  United  States 
should  never  seek  to  extend  its  sovereignty  beyond  the  Missis 
sippi,  or  indeed  to  expand  its  territories  in  any  direction  beyond 
the  limits  which  should  be  prescribed  in  the  treaty  of  peace; 
and  that  the  fishing  rights  in  the  waters  and  on  the  banks  and 
shores  of  Newfoundland  should  belong  equally  to  the  United 
States,  France,  and  Great  Britain.  Congress  debated  the  mat 
ter  for  a  month,  and  then,  under  French  influence,  struck  out 
the  clause  relating  to  the  navigation  of  the  lower  Mississippi. 
Next  a  long  controversy  ensued  over  the  fisheries.  The  New 
York  delegation,  led  by  Gouverneur  Morris  and  John  Jay  and 
forming  a  part  of  the  French  or  "pro-Gallican"  faction,  refused 
to  insist  upon  demanding  a  treaty  right  to  the  fisheries,  while 
the  New  Englanders,  led  by  Elbridge  Gerry,  and  forming  the 
mass  of  the  ' '  anti-Gallicans, "  were  as  resolutely  in  favor  of  such 
a  demand.  In  the  end,  largely  through  the  intrigues  and  inter 
vention  of  the  French  minister,  Gerard,  the  former  won.  Con- 


108  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

gress  refused  to  demand  the  right  to  the  fisheries.  That  de 
lighted  Vergennes,  who  had  all  along  opposed  American  rights 
in  the  North  Atlantic,  declaring  that ' '  the  fisheries  on  the  coasts 
of  Newfoundland,  of  Nova  Scotia,  and  of  Canada  belong  ex 
clusively  to  the  English ;  and  the  Americans  have  no  pretension 
whatever  to  share  in  them."  Happily,  Congress  also  set  aside 
the  astounding  proposition  of  the  committee,  to  bind  the  United 
States  never  to  extend  its  domain  beyond  the  Mississippi  River, 
or  beyond  the  limits  fixed  in  the  treaty  of  peace.  So  by  the 
middle  of  June  the  terms  were  apparently  settled,  chiefly  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  views  of  the  ' '  pro-Gallican ' '  party,  and  Dick 
inson  of  Pennsylvania,  Gouverneur  Morris  of  New  York,  and 
Marchant  of  Rhode  Island  were  appointed  a  committee  to  select 
a  minister  to  negotiate  the  treaty. 

But  the  matter  was  not  settled.  Two  days  later  Gerry  threw 
a  bomb  into  Congress.  He  moved  for  a  demand  of  the  common 
right  with  Great  Britain  to  fish  on  the  banks  of  Newfoundland 
and  the  other  banks  and  seas  of  North  America,  as  a  sine  qua  non 
of  treaty-making.  There  followed  a  long  and  bitter  debate, 
The  '  *  pro-Gallicans/ '  inspired  and  openly  directed  by  Gerard, 
the  French  minister,  opposed  Gerry's  proposition  with  might 
and  main.  New  York,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North  Caro 
lina  threatened  to  secede  from  the  confederation  if  it  should  be 
adopted.  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Pennsylvania  supported  Gerry.  New  Jersey,  Dela 
ware,  and  South  Carolina  were  divided.  For  a  time  the  con 
tinued  union  of  the  States  and  the  success  of  the  American  cause 
trembled  in  the  balance.  Finally,  a  compromise  was  secured. 
Gerry's  proposal  was  not  adopted,  but  in  its  place  Congress 
voted  to  declare  an  academic  expression  of  opinion  that  America 
had  a  right  to  the  fisheries,  and  a  request  that  France  would 
guarantee  that  right  to  us  in  the  act  of  peace-making.  Even 
this,  with  its  humiliating  confession  of  dependence  upon  France, 
greatly  displeased  Gerard,  who  went  so  far  in  expressing  his 
resentment  as  to  threaten  that  France  might  withdraw  from  the 
American  alliance  and  unite  herself  unreservedly  with  Spain. 
This  menace  scared  some  of  the  weaker  brethren,  the  "pro- 
Gallieans"  rallied  their  forces  again,  and  on  July  12,  at  Gerard's 
dictation,  the  former  action  of  Congress  was  reconsidered,  and 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        109 

the  whole  question  of  the  fisheries  was  remitted  to  some  subse 
quent  treaty  to  be  made  with  Great  Britain  after  peace  had  been 
established. 

Encouraged  by  this  success,  the  French  government  through 
Gerard  attempted  a  still  more  mischievous  stroke.  It  sought  to 
persuade  Congress  to  forego  all  demand  for  recognition  of  Amer 
ican  independence  by  Great  Britain,  and  to  be  content  with  a 
French  guarantee  of  independence.  Thus  the  United  States, 
instead  of  realizing  the  ideal  set  forth  in  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  to  the  attainment  of  which  the  signers  of  that  in 
strument  had  pledged  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their 
sacred  honor,  would  have  been  made  a  dependency  of  France 
and  would  have  enjoyed  self-government  only  under  an  alien 
guarantee.  Astounding  as  it  may  seem,  this  monstrous  pro 
posal  was  received  with  favor  by  some  members  of  Congress. 
The  majority  of  that  body  insisted,  however,  that  Great  Britain 
must  recognize  American  independence,  and  there  is  reason  to 
suppose  that  this  attempt  of  France  to  strangle  the  young  repub 
lic  opened  the  eyes  of  many  Americans  to  the  danger  of  foreign 
influence.  Thus  disappointed,  Gerard  made  one  more  attempt 
at  mischief.  He  asked  Congress  to  renounce  the  right  to  navi 
gate  the  Mississippi,  and  to  leave  that  matter  entirely  to  the 
magnanimity  of  Spain.  This  Congress  would  not  do.  But  not 
wishing  to  rebuff  him  too  openly,  it  dodged  a  decision  of  the 
case  by  sending  a  minister  of  its  own  to  Spain  to  settle  the  matter 
by  direct  negotiation  with  that  country. 

Upon  such  a  basis,  then,  by  the  end  of  September,  the  terms 
upon  which  peace  was  to  be  sought  appeared  to  be  settled,  and 
there  remained  only  the  selection  of  a  minister  to  conduct  the 
negotiations.  Gerard  tried  to  dictate  the  choice  of  Jay,  whom 
he  regarded  as  a  trustworthy  member  of  the  "pro-Gallican" 
party,  though  by  that  time  Jay  was  already  beginning  to  get  his 
eyes  opened  to  the  real  sentiments  and  aims  of  France.  But 
the  French  minister  was  not  able  to  control  the  action  of  Con 
gress  in  that  matter.  After  several  indecisive  ballots,  John 
Adams  was  chosen  as  peace  commissioner,  and  was  instructed  to 
negotiate  a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  on  these  terms:  Great 
Britain  was  to  treat  with  the  United  States  as  "  sovereign,  free, 
and  independent,"  and  independence  was  to  be  formally  con- 


110  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

firmed  by  the  treaty ;  Nova  Scotia  was  to  be  acquired  if  possible, 
but  was  not  to  be  insisted  upon;  the  fishery  rights  were  to  be 
sought  but  were  not  to  be  insisted  upon  in  the  peace  treaty 
though  they  were  to  be  insisted  upon  in  the  commercial  treaty 
which  was  to  be  subsequently  negotiated.  So  Adams  was  com 
missioned  for  a  task  for  which  he  was  consciously  ill-fitted  in 
most  respects,  and  which  he  was  unable  to  enter  upon  for  a  long 
time.  Then,  as  a  sort  of  consolation  for  Gerard,  the  latter 's 
candidate,  Jay,  was  appointed  minister  to  Spain,  and  was  in 
structed  to  offer  that  country  an  American  guarantee  of  the 
Floridas  in  return  for  a  Spanish  guarantee  of  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  to  and  into  the  Gulf.  He  was  also  instructed 
to  seek  a  loan  of  $5,000,000. 

Let  us  first  follow  Jay  on  his  unpromising  errand.  Franklin 
had  been  appointed  minister  to  Spain  before  him,  on  January  1, 
1777,  but  had  never  gone  thither,  his  communications  with  the 
Spanish  government  being  confined  to  the  sending  of  a  note 
conveying  the  resolutions  of  Congress  promising  help  to  Spain 
in  her  recovery  of  Pensacola — which,  by  the  way,  Spain  never 
properly  acknowledged.  Then  Arthur  Lee  succeeded  Franklin, 
and  actually  went  to  Spain.  By  dint  of  hard  work  he  secured 
loans  of  $170,000,  and  promises  of  millions  more,  which  were 
never  fulfilled.  Failing  to  get  a  considerable  loan,  and  seeing 
no  prospect  of  a  treaty,  Lee  then  left  Spain  in  disgust,  to  take 
the  place  of  his  brother  William  at  Berlin,  while  William  went 
to  Holland.  Jay  was,  therefore,  the  third  American  envoy  to 
the  Spanish  court.  He  was  commissioned  on  October  16,  1779, 
and  sailed  four  days  later  on  the  same  American  frigate  that 
had  been  detailed  to  take  the  French  minister,  Gerard,  back  to 
France,  on  the  arrival  here  of  his  successor,  Luzerne.  On  the 
voyage,  indeed,  as  soon  as  it  was  begun,  Gerard  tried  to  find  out 
what  Jay's  instructions  were.  He  did  not  succeed,  and  a 
marked  coolness  arose  between  the  two  men.  John  Adams 
thought  that  this  was  what  led  Jay  to  separate  himself  from  the 
French  party  and  to  regard  France  and  Frenchmen  with  dis 
trust.  It  may  have  contributed  something  to  that  end,  but  the 
more  probable  fact  is  that  Jay,  who  was  one  of  the  ablest  states 
men  of  his  time,  was  by  far  too  great  a  man  to  be  blindly  led  by 
any  foreign  influence.  He  was  himself  of  French  ancestry,  and 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        111 

was  naturally  inclined  to  regard  France  with  favor  and  affec 
tion  ;  but  lie  was  above  all  an  American,  and  above  most  men  of 
his  time  imbued  with  the  true  spirit  of  national  independence 
and  sovereignty.  He  arrived  at  Cadiz  on  January  22,  1780, 
and  quickly  realized  that  he  was  in  an  unpleasant  situation. 
He  sent  his  secretary,  Mr.  Carmichael,  on  to  Madrid,  to  "see 
how  the  land  lay, ' '  and  did  not  follow  him  until  spring. 

The  favor  which  Gerard  had  shown  him,  and  his  own  record 
of  inclination  toward  the  "Gallican"  side  in  Congress,  should 
have  commended  him  to  Spanish  favor,  but  apparently  did  not. 
At  any  rate,  he  was  not  favorably  received.  Indeed  he  was  not 
officially  received  at  all,  nor  recognized.  The  Spanish  govern 
ment  took  the  ground  that  it  could  not  or  would  not  recognize 
him  as  a  minister,  nor  receive  him  as  such,  until  a  treaty  was 
negotiated  between  the  two  countries.  But  it  would  make  no 
treaty  with  America  until  the  United  States  would  renounce  the 
right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  which  of  course  the  United 
States  would  not  do.  That  is  to  say,  Spain  would  not  recognize 
Jay  as  a  minister  unless  he  would  forsake  and  repudiate  the  most 
vital  and  imperative  part  of  his  instructions.  The  United  States, 
it  may  be  observed,  was  probably  the  first  country  to  claim  the 
right  to  navigate  the  territorial  waters  of  another  country;  for 
of  course  the  lower  Mississippi,  with  both  its  shores  Spanish 
territory,  was  a  territorial  water  of  Spain.  It  is  not  clear  that 
the  right  was  or  is  a  valid  one.  On  the  other  hand,  Spain  was 
doubtless  going  too  far  in  trying  to  make  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  a 
mare  clausum.  Yet  such  was  her  aim,  and  that  was  the  chief 
reason  for  her  bitter  opposition  to  any  United  States  frontage 
on  the  Mississippi.  Florida  Blanca  declared,  in  September, 
1 1780,  that  Spain  was  more  interested  in  the  monopolization  of 
the  Mississippi  River  than  in  the  regaining  of  Gibraltar.  If  so, 
seeing  that  she  had  stipulated  with  France  that  her  regaining 
of  Gibraltar  was  a  sine  qua  non  of  peace  with  Great  Britain, 
we  may  judge  with  what  determination  she  resisted  the  Amer 
ican  demands  for  equal  use  of  the  Mississippi  and  of  the  Gulf. 

Such  was  the  impossible  position  in  which  Jay  found  himself. 
He  was  commissioned  to  make  a  treaty  on  certain  terms,  and 
he  was  told  that  no  treaty  would  be  made  except  on  exactly  op 
posite  terms.  It  is  possible  that  at  first  he  would  have  made  a 


112  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

treaty  on  Spain's  terms,  for  a  limited  term  of  years,  for  at  that 
time  the  winning  of  independence  seemed  far  more  important 
than  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf,  and 
Jay,  as  we  have  seen,  inclined  toward  the  "pro-Gallican"  side. 
But  the  conduct  of  the  Spanish  and  French  governments  them 
selves  soon  opened  his  eyes  to  their  real  intentions  to  sacrifice 
the  interests  of  the  United  States  to  their  own  selfish  ends,  and 
he  became  resolute  in  his  adherence  to  the  principle  which  had 
been  laid  down  by  Congress. 

He  was  in  fact  much  more  resolute  than  Congress  itself.  For 
the  latter  body,  under  the  influence  of  French  intrigues,  soon 
reversed  itself,  in  circumstances  intolerably  unjust  to  Jay.  It 
was  in  the  spring  of  1781.  The  French  ambassador  at  Madrid 
had  assumed  to  take  Jay  under  his  patronage  and  direct  the 
diplomatic  conduct  of  the  young  American,  a  course  of  action 
which  did  not  in  the  least  strengthen  Jay's  attachment  to  France. 
He  told  Jay  that  he  (Jay)  was  making  a  failure  of  his  mission 
through  his  insistence  upon  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  and 
that  it  was  a  pity  thus  needlessly  to  blight  his  own  diplomatic 
career  in  the  bud  and  at  the  same  time  to  imperil  the  welfare  of 
the  country  he  was  trying  to  serve.  Jay  replied  that,  apart  from 
his  own  convictions  upon  the  matter,  whatever  they  might  be, 
there  were  the  orders  of  Congress,  which  he  must  obey.  At  this 
the  French  ambassador  expressed  some  incredulity,  and  declared 
his  belief  that  Jay  had  been  endowed  by  Congress  with  much 
more  discretion  and  liberty  of  action  than  he  was  willing  to  ad 
mit.  This  confident  expression  was  based  upon  something  more 
than  mere  opinion  or  guesswork.  The  Frenchman  had  already 
learned,  what  Jay  himself  did  not  learn  until  some  weeks  later, 
that  under  French  influence  Congress  had  changed  its  attitude 
and  had  decided  to  drop  its  demand  for  free  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi. 

In  time  Jay  received  his  new  instructions,  weeks  after  the 
French  ambassador  and,  probably,  the  Spanish  government,  had 
learned  their  nature.  He  was  directed  no  longer  to  insist  upon 
free  navigation  of  the  lower  Mississippi,  below  the  thirty-first 
parallel  of  latitude.  A  little  later  that  amazing  Congress  fur 
ther  directed  him  to  make  a  treaty  with  Spain,  if  possible,  with 
out  regard  to  the  treaty  already  made  with  France.  Apparently 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        113 

Congress  thought  that  it,  too,  would  try  its  hand  at  double-deal 
ing  and  betrayal  of  allies,  fondly  imagining  that  its  doings  would 
be  kept  by  Spain  secret  from  France.  These  instructions  Jay, 
now  thoroughly  aroused  and  exasperated,  wisely  and  patriot 
ically  declined  to  obey.  Then  came  an  order  to  make,  if  he 
could,  a  treaty  with  Spain  on  the  best  terms  he  could,  to  secure 
her  as  our  ally  in  the  war.  This  order  he  attempted  to  fulfil. 
He  made  proposals  to  the  Spanish  government  for  a  treaty  of 
alliance,  in  which  the  claim  of  the  United  States  to  free  naviga- 
gation  of  the  lower  Mississippi  was  waived.  But  he  added  the 
stipulation  that  if  the  alliance  were  postponed  until  after  gen 
eral  peace  was  reestablished,  that  waiver  would  be  withdrawn 
and  the  demand  reasserted. 

To  this  surprisingly  conciliatory  proposal  the  Spanish  court 
and  government  made  no  reply  whatever.  Jay  waited  patiently 
until  the  spring  of  1782.  Then  he  was  about  to  make  a  pretty 
peremptory  demand  for  a  reply  of  some  kind,  but  the  French 
ambassador  again  intervened  and  dissuaded  him  from  so  doing. 
The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  Spain  was  at  heart  thoroughly  hostile 
to  the  United  States,  partly  because  of  old  traditions,  partly  be 
cause  this  was  a  republic  and  therefore  offensive  to  monarchical  / 
absolutism,  partly  because  the  United  States  had  already  seized  / 
territory  which  Spain  regarded  as  her  own,  and  partly  because 
Spain  feared  further  aggressions  and  spoliation  if  the  United 
States  were  permitted  to  become  great  and  powerful  and  to 
abut  directly  upon  Spanish  territory.  Before  this,  in  1781,  there 
came  to  Jay's  knowledge  a  mediation  proposal  of  the  Kussian 
and  Austrian  courts.  He  strongly  opposed  having  anything  to 
do  with  it,  because  both  Austria  and  Russia  were  more  friendly 
to  Great  Britain  than  to  America,  and  were  not  likely  to  act 
impartially.  He  continued  to  work  for  his  original  ideal,  of  a 
close  defensive  alliance  of  America,  France,  Spain,  and  Holland. 
But  Spain  was  hostile  to  America,  and  was  intent  on  regaining 
Gibraltar ;  and  France,  bound  by  the  treaty  of  Aranjurez,  began 
to  regard  American  independence  as  a  matter  entirely  inferior 
in  importance  to  the  attainment  of  Spain's  ends. 

All  these  phases  of  the  situation,  and  all  the  cross  threads  of 
intrigue  and  self-seeking,  soon  became  quite  obvious  to  Jay's 
penetrating  vision,  and  he  realized  that  his  mission  to  Spain  was 

VOL.  1—8 


114  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

hopeless,  and  that  American  reliance  upon  European  aid  was 
vain.  So  when,  early  in  1782,  the  French  ambassador,  Mont- 
morin,  urged  him  not  to  demand  from  Spain  a  reply  to  his  final 
treaty  proposals,  Jay  acceded  to  his  urgings.  But  he  did  more. 
He  plainly  told  Montmorin  that  he  believed  that  Great  Britain 
herself  would  be  the  first  nation  to  recognize  the  full  independ 
ence  of  America,  for  it  was  quite  evident  that  France,  with  all 
her  professions  of  friendship  and  her  actual  treaty  of  alliance 
with  us,  did  not  wish  ' l  to  see  us  treated  as  independent  by  other 
nations  until  after  a  peace,  lest  we  should  become  less  manage 
able  in  proportion  as  our  dependence  upon  her  shall  diminish." 
A  more  exact  estimate  of  the  actual  situation,  and  a  more  ac 
curate  forecast  of  the  future,  could  not  have  been  made.  Mont 
morin  and  his  masters  at  Versailles  must  have  realized  then  that 
at  least  one  American  statesman  understood  the  whole  devious 
scheme  of  their  diplomacy,  and  their  dream  of  Jay  as  the  cham 
pion  or  the  tool  of  the  "Gallican"  cause  must  have  had  a  rude 
awakening. 

The  end  of  Jay's  mission  speedily  followed.  In  May,  1782, 
the  Spanish  minister,  Florida  Blanca,  invited  Jay  to  dinner,  and 
for  one  moment  it  looked  as  though  recognition  of  the  American 
envoy  by  the  Spanish  government  was  after  all  to  be  given. 
But  the  next  day  the  invitation  was  withdrawn,  and  Florida 
Blanca  explained  that  it  had  been  given  by  mistake.  He  would, 
however,  he  added,  be  glad  to  renew  it  to  Jay  not  as  a  diplomatic 
envoy  but  as  "a,  private  gentleman."  It  seems  not  improbable 
that  this  episode  was  a  premeditated  attempt  to  humiliate  Jay. 
At  any  rate  Jay  replied  to  it  with  spirit.  He  declined  to  receive 
the  proffered  invitation  and  held  no  more  intercourse  with  the 
Spanish  government.  As  soon  as  possible  thereafter  he  left 
Madrid  and  went  to  Paris,  to  cooperate  with  Franklin.  It  may 
be  added,  to  complete  the  record  of  Jay  9s  mission,  that,  in  addi 
tion  to  betraying  him  to  France,  Congress  drew  bills  upon  Jay 
— and  also  upon  Laurens,  who  had  been  commissioned  to  The 
Hague  but  who  had  been  captured  by  the  British  and  was  actu 
ally  in  the  Tower  of  London — for  large  amounts,  which  he  was 
expected  to  raise  through  loans!  The  embarrassment  which 
this  extraordinary  financiering  caused  to  Jay  may  easily  be  im 
agined.  He  was  unable  to  secure  any  such  loans  in  Spain,  and 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        115 

the  drafts  would  have  been  altogether  dishonored  had  not  the 
French  government  come  to  the  rescue  and  paid  them,  with  only 
the  slightest  help  from  Spain. 

John  Adams,  as  we  have  seen,  was  commissioned  to  negotiate 
the  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain,  at  the  same  time  that 
Jay  was  sent  to  Spain.  He  forthwith  proceeded  to  Paris,  where 
negotiations  would  be  conducted  when  the  opportune  time  ar 
rived.  But  on  reaching  that  capital  he  was  quickly  made  to  feel, 
as  Jay  was  at  Madrid,  the  sinister  influence  of  the  self-seeking 
and  not  always  sincere  French  government,  insinuating  itself 
between  him  and  his  own  government  and  striving  to  shape  his 
actions  to  its  ends.  He  was  not  even  treated  with  diplomatic 
courtesy.  Upon  his  arrival  he  disclosed  to  Vergennes  the  nature 
of  his  mission,  as  fully  as  his  instructions  made  it  permissible 
for  him  to  do,  and  of  course  with  entire  truthfulness.  Ver 
gennes  in  reply  intimated  a  gross  doubt  of  his  truthfulness,  and 
a  belief  that  he  was  concealing  much  that  he  might  reveal  if  he 
would.  He  told  Adams  that  when  Gerard  arrived  from  Amer 
ica,  as  he  would  do  soon,  he  expected  to  learn  from  him  the  whole 
truth  about  his  (Adams's)  commission  and  instructions!  It 
would  be  difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  offensive,  and  we 
must  reckon  it  one  of  the  great  moral  triumphs  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  fire-eater's  career  that  he  kept  his  temper  and  was 
patient  under  such  provocation.  It  was  bad  enough  for  Ver 
gennes  to  intimate  that  he  or  his  agent  would  be  able  to  pene 
trate  the  secret  instructions  of  Congress  to  its  confidential  agent 
and  to  learn  from  Congress  things  which  that  body  had  in 
structed  Adams  himself  not  to  disclose.  It  was  monstrous  for 
him  practically  to  tell  Adams  that  he  would  not  believe  his  word 
until  it  was  confirmed  by  Gerard.  Vergennes  was  undoubtedly 
desperately  desirous  of  learning  the  full  extent  of  Adams's  pow 
ers  and  plans,  and  especially  of  learning — in  order  that  he  might 
defeat  them — his  plans  for  negotiating  a  commercial  treaty  with 
Great  Britain  as  a  complement  to  the  treaty  of  peace.  His  boast 
of  being  able  to  get  the  information  he  wanted  from  Gerard 
was,  however,  justified.  When  that  envoy  returned  to  France 
he  imparted  to  Vergennes  a  full  account  of  the  proceedings  in 
Congress  and  of  the  instructions  to  Adams,  concerning  both  the 
treaty  of  peace  and  the  commercial  treaty.  Vergennes  there- 


116  AMERICA'S  FOEEIGN  RELATIONS 

upon  told  Adams  that  he  had  found  from  Gerard  that  he 
(Adams)  had  told  the  truth! 

Finding  that  Adams  was  commissioned  to  make  a  commercial 
treaty,  Vergennes  did  not  venture  openly  to  dissuade  him  from 
attempting  to  do  that  work.  But  he  advised  and  even  urged 
him  strongly  to  keep  that  part  of  his  instructions  a  profound 
secret,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  best  to  do  one  thing  at  a  time, 
and  to  negotiate  the  peace  treaty  before  anything  whatever  was 
said  about  the  commercial  treaty.  This  advice  seemed  plausible, 
but  it  was  grossly  insincere.  It  was  Vergennes 's  device  for 
keeping  Adams  quiet  upon  that  subject  until  Congress  could  be 
influenced  in  some  way  to  alter  his  instructions.  To  the  latter 
end  Vergennes  promptly  addressed  himself.  The  new  French 
minister  to  America,  Luzerne,  diligently  set  to  work  upon  Con 
gress,  and  in  July,  1781,  actually  prevailed  upon  that  infatuated 
body  to  revoke  Adams's  powers  to  make  a  treaty  of  commerce! 
In  such  fashion  was  an  American  foreign  envoy  on  a  mission 
of  supreme  importance  made  the  plaything  of  a  designing  alien 
power  through  the  folly  or  corruption  of  the  American  Con 
gress. 

In  existing  circumstances  there  was  little  or  nothing  for 
Adams  to  do  under  his  commission.  The  time  had  not  yet  come 
for  negotiations  with  Great  Britain.  But  he  could  not  be  idle, 
and  so  he  undertook  to  do  some  diplomatic  work  with  the  French 
government.  In  this  he  no  doubt  acted  indiscreetly,  infringing 
upon  Franklin's  prerogatives.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  been 
encouraged  in  that  course  by  Vergennes  himself,  who  then  at 
tempted  to  make  trouble  between  Franklin  and  Adams.  It  was 
probably  a  deliberate  scheme  of  Vergennes 's  to  arouse  dissen 
sion  and  jealousy  between  the  two  Americans,  and  especially  to 
discredit  Adams  and  to  defeat  in  advance  the  mission  on  which 
he  had  come  to  Europe.  Fortunately  the  good  nature  and  good 
sense  of  Franklin  and  the  transparent  honesty  of  Adams  pre 
vented  any  serious  trouble  between  the  two,  and  the  situation 
was  soon  wholly  relieved  by  Adams's  departure  from  Paris  to 
The  Hague.  At  that  capital  he  received  two  new  commissions 
from  Congress.  One  authorized  him  to  give  the  adherence  of 
the  United  States  to  the  Armed  Neutrality,  and  to  secure  the 
recognition  of  this. country  as  a  member  of  that  league — a  course 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        117 

which  Russia  opposed  and  prevented.  The  other  made  him 
American  minister  to  the  Netherlands  and  authorized  him  to  ne 
gotiate  a  treaty  with  that  country.  In  the  latter  work  he  was 
ultimately  successful. 

Holland  more  than  any  other  European  country  sympathized 
with  the  American  demand  for  independence.  Her  friendship 
was  shown  in  her  refusal  of  mercenaries  to  Great  Britain,  and 
in  other  ways.  Upon  the  arrival  of  Adams  at  The  Hague  a 
strong  sentiment  arose  in  favor  of  recognizing  him  and  making 
the  desired  treaty.  This  would  probably  have  been  done  with 
out  delay,  had  it  not  been  for  the  malign  influence  of  France. 
The  French  minister  at  The  Hague  not  only  refrained  from 
giving  Adams  the  slightest  aid,  but  actually  used  his  influence 
against  him,  to  prevent  his  recognition  by  the  Government. 
Vergennes  also  exerted  himself  to  the  same  end.  So  strong  was 
French  influence  in  Holland  at  that  time  that  Adams  was  thus 
held  aloof  for  a  considerable  period.  For  eight  months  he 
waited  in  vain  for  recognition,  but  he  knew  the  secret  of  the  de 
lay  and  was  confident  of  overcoming  it  at  last.  On  January  9, 
1782,  he  renewed  his  efforts  to  secure  recognition.  On  February 
28,  Friesland,  the  province  most  of  all  devoted  to  the  principles 
of  liberty,  declared  in  favor  of  receiving  him  as  the  envoy  of  a 
sovereign  power.  The  other  provinces  followed  the  example, 
and  on  April  19,  the  seventh  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Lex 
ington,  the  States  General,  in  accordance  with  the  unanimous 
wish  of  the  provinces,  resolved  thus  to  receive  him.  Thus  the 
Dutch  republic  was  the  second  power  in  the  world  to  recognize 
the  independence  of  the  United  States.  We  might  say  it  was  the 
first  to  do  so  for  our  own  sake  and  for  love  of  liberty  and  through 
sympathy  with  us.  On  October  8,  1782,  Adams  concluded  with 
the  Netherlands  a  treaty  of  friendship  and  commerce — before 
the  treaty  of  Paris  was  concluded.  This  was  greatly  displeas 
ing  to  Vergennes,  who  complained  that  Adams  was  "too  pre 
cipitate.  ' '  The  French  minister  by  this  time  had  also  discovered 
that  John  Jay  could  not  be  used  for  French  purposes  to  the 
detriment  or  sacrifice  of  the  American  cause,  as  had  been  hoped 
when  Gerard  urged  his  appointment  as  peace  commissioner. 
He  denounced  both  Adams  and  Jay  as  *  *  persons  not  easily  man 
aged  "  (caracteres  peu  maniables).  But  Adams  exulted  in  his 


118  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

achievements  at  The  Hague,  as  he  was  well  entitled  to  do,  declar 
ing:  "I  have  planted  the  American  standard  at  The  Hague. 
There  let  it  wave  and  fly  in  triumph.  I  shall  look  down  upon  the 
flagstaff  with  pleasure  from  the  other  world." 

The  news  of  Yorktown,  and  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis,  in 
October,  1781,  convinced  even  the  infatuated  Lord  North  that 
the  end  of  British  dominion  in  the  United  States  had  come. 
Forthwith  an  attempt  was  made  by  the  British  government  to 
treat  for  peace  directly  and  exclusively  with  America,  ignoring 
France ;  or  at  least  separately  and  apart  from  that  country.  To 
this  Franklin  peremptorily  objected.  The  American  alliance 
with  France  required  this  country  to  negotiate  for  peace  only 
in  conjunction  with  her,  and  to  that  agreement  he  would  hold 
true.  Then  North  tried  to  treat  with  France  separately  and 
apart  from  America,  but  Vergennes  also  refused.  These  refus 
als  of  the  allies  completed  North's  discomfiture.  Had  he  suc 
ceeded  in  either  scheme  for  separate  negotiations,  he  might 
partly  have  rehabilitated  himself.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  On 
February  22,  1782,  Conway's  address  to  the  king,  against  fur 
ther  continuance  of  the  war,  was  carried.  Less  than  a  month 
later,  on  March  20,  Lord  North's  ministry  resigned.  In  the 
new  Cabinet,  which  was  then  formed,  the  friends  of  America 
were  in  the  ascendant.  Lord  Rockingham  was  prime  minister, 
Charles  James  Fox  was  foreign  minister,  and  Lord  Shelburne 
was  minister  for  the  colonies.  Each  of  these  three  had  grave 
faults,  but  each  was  an  undoubted  friend  of  America.  Between 
Fox  and  Shelburne  there  at  once  arose  a  rivalry,  which  much 
delayed  negotiations  for  peace,  though  both  men  were  really  de 
sirous  of  expediting  them.  Shelburne  conceived  that  as  the 
American  States  had  been  and  still  were,  from  the  British  point 
of  view,  British  colonies,  it  was  his  province,  as  colonial  minister, 
to  treat  with  them.  Therefore  he  sent  Richard  Oswald,  a  rich 
Scottish  merchant,  to  Paris  to  confer  with  the  representatives 
of  the  States.  Fox,  as  foreign  minister,  also  sent  a  peace  com 
missioner  to  Paris,  Thomas  Grenville,  to  negotiate  with  the 
French  government  without  reference  to  America.  Oswald  was 
sent  on  April  12,  and  Grenville  on  May  7.  The  two  worked  at 
cross  purposes  until  July.  On  the  first  day  of  that  month 
Lord  Rockingham  •  died,  and  was  succeeded  as  prime  minister 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        119 

by  Shelburne.  Fox  at  once  retired  from  the  foreign  ministry, 
and  his  agent,  Grenville,  was  recalled  from  Paris,  leaving  Os 
wald  to  continue  all  the  negotiations  alone. 

Meantime  the  French  government  was  busy  with  devious 
schemes.  Yergennes  was  not  at  all  pleased  with  the  idea  of 
having  John  Adams  alone  negotiate  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  he 
took  steps  to  change  both  the  personality  of  the  commission  and 
its  instructions.  It  was  his  boast  that,  through  his  agent,  Lu- 
zerne,  the  French  minister  to  America,  he  secured  the  appoint 
ment  of  R.  R.  Livingston  as  the  first  American  secretary  for  for 
eign  affairs,  and  through  him  got  Congress  to  appoint  new  peace 
commissioners  to  serve  as  Adams's  colleagues,  and  to  order  them 
to  subject  themselves  to  the  advice  and  direction  of  the  French 
government.  Adams  did  not  object  to  the  appointment  of  col- 
,  leagues.  On  the  contrary,  he  welcomed  it.  Peace  commission 
ers,  he  said,  should  have  a  talent  for  making  peace,  while  his 
own  talent  lay,  according  to  his  own  confession,  in  the  direction 
of  making  war.  So  a  commission  of  five  members  was  consti 
tuted,  Jay,  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Laurens  being  added  as 
Adams's  colleagues.  Laurens,  however,  was  a  prisoner  in  the 
Tower  of  London,  and  Jefferson  was  detained  at  home  by  the  ill 
ness  of  his  wife,  so  that  the  commission  actually  consisted  of 
Adams,  Franklin,  and  Jay.  Next  Vergennes  proposed  that  the 
French  government  and  the  American  commissioners  should  ne 
gotiate  with  England  separately  yet  pari  passu.  To  this  the 
Americans  agreed.  Yergennes  scornfully  rejected,  however,  a 
suggestion  that  France  should  be  satisfied  with  the  granting  of 
independence  to  the  United  States,  and  on  that  basis  should  ap 
prove  the  making  of  peace  between  America  and  Great  Britain. 
France  had  not  gone  to  war  with  Great  Britain  solely  or  chiefly 
for  the  sake  of  the  United  States.  She  had  another  ally,  whom 
she  held  dearer  than  America.  That  was  Spain,  who  never  had 
had  anything  in  common  with  the  United  States  and  never  had 
recognized  its  independence.  The  demands  of  Spain  must  be 
granted,  and  her  desires  must  be  gratified,  before  there  could  be 
peace.  Thus  France  might  indefinitely  prolong  the  war  for  ob 
jects  entirely  foreign  and  indifferent  to  America,  yet  America 
must  not  make  peace  until  those  objects  were  attained.  The 
interests  of  the  United  States  might  be  sacrificed  to  Spain 's  am- 


120  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

bitions  to  secure  Jamaica,  Gibraltar,  and  what  not.  In  such  a 
dilemma  was  America  placed  by  the  French  alliance.  She  was 
a  mere  pawn  in  the  Franco-Spanish  game. 

Nor  was  this  complication  merely  theoretical  or  nominal.  It 
was  actual,  and  it  embarrassed  the  negotiations  at  every  turn. 
Oswald's  commission,  as  prepared  by  Shelburne,  authorized  him 
to  treat  with  the  commissioners  of  ''the  said  colonies  or  planta 
tions."  To  that  phrase  Jay  instantly  and  strenuously  objected. 
It  was  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  United  States  to  be  regarded 
as  ' '  colonies, ' '  and  for  the  American  commissioners  to  acquiesce 
in  it  would  be  "descending  from  the  ground  of  independence." 
He  held  that  American  independence  should  be  recognized  at 
the  beginning,  and  that  the  negotiations  should  be  conducted  on 
that  basis,  as  with  the  commissioners  not  of  colonies  but  of  inde 
pendent,  sovereign  States.  Vergennes  did  not  approve  this  bold 
stand  of  Jay's,  and  strove  to  dissuade  him  from  it.  Independ 
ence  would  not  come  to  America,  he  argued,  until  the  treaty  had 
been  made.  Therefore  Shelburne  was  right  in  thus  regarding 
the  States  as  still  mere  colonies.  But  the  arguments  and  per 
suasions  of  Vergennes  only  confirmed  Jay  in  his  resolution  not 
to  acquiesce  in  that  phrase  in  Oswald's  commission.  He  believed 
that  Vergennes  wished  to  postpone  not  merely  peace-making  but 
even  the  recognition  of  American  independence  by  Great  Britain 
until  Spain 's  demands  had  been  secured,  fearing  that  if  America 
once  got  its  independence  recognized  by  Great  Britain,  it  would 
refuse  to  continue  the  war  any  longer  for  Spain's  benefit. 
Doubtless  Jay  was  quite  right  in  this  interpretation  of  Ver 
gennes 's  attitude.  That  Vergennes  was  right  in  thus  planning 
to  make  America  subservient  to  Spanish  interests,  may  be 
doubted.  The  root  of  the  trouble  lay,  of  course,  in  the  treaty  of 
Aranjurez,  by  which  France  was  bound  to  Spain. 

This  was  the  situation.  America  and  France  had  made  a 
treaty  between  themselves,  without  reference  to  Spain,  binding 
them  to  fight  England  together,  and  to  make  peace  with  her 
only  on  terms  satisfactory  to  both.  Later  France  made  the 
treaty  with  Spain,  without  reference  to  America,  to  practically 
the  same  effect.  Doniol,  in  his  voluminous  work,  "La  Partici 
pation  de  la  France  dans  I'Establissement  de  1'Independance  des 
Etats  Unis,"  has  elaborately  argued  that  France  could  not  help 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        121 

making  the  treaty  of  Aranjurez.  Perhaps  not.  But  that  was 
not  our  business.  We  had  no  lot  nor  part  in  it,  and  were  not  to 
be  bound  by  it  nor  to  be  made  subject  to  its  provisions.  France 
might  make  the  treaty  with  Spain,  but  she  could  not  make  Amer 
ica  a  party  to  it.  If  it  was  necessary  for  her  to  make  it  she 
should  have  revealed  the  fact  to  the  American  government,  and 
should  have  released  America  from  her  obligations  under  the 
French  alliance  to  whatever  extent  the  conditions  thereof  were 
affected  by  the  new  treaty.  But  France  did  not  do  so.  She 
made  the  treaty  with  Spain,  and  carefully  concealed  it  from 
America,  which  was  disingenuous;  and  then  she  tried  to  sacri 
fice  American  interests  to  the  alien  interests  of  Spain,  which  was 
worse. 

There  is  no  question  that  Vergennes's  fear  that  British  recog 
nition  of  American  independence  would  impel  America  to  with 
draw  from  her  obligations  to  stand  with  France  in  peace-making 
was  inspired  by  Spain,  or  was  in  fact  Spain's  fear.  So  much 
was  practically  admitted  by  Montmorin,  the  French  ambassador 
to  Spain,  speaking  not  only  for  himself  but  also  for  Florida 
Blanca.  Moreover,  it  is  to  be  recalled  that  Vergennes  had  pre 
viously  declared  to  Grenville  that  British  recognition  of  Amer 
ican  independence  would  be  no  favor  to  France,  since  such  in 
dependence  had  in  fact  existed  before  French  intervention  in 
the  war.  He  had  also  objected  to  the  Austro-Russian  scheme  of 
general  peace-making,  on  the  ground  that  it  provided  for  British 
negotiations  with  the  United  States  as  colonies  and  not  as  an 
independent  power.  So  now  he  was  practically  repudiating  the 
ground  which  he  himself  had  taken  not  long  before.  The  situa 
tion  was  shrewdly  summed  up  by  Jay  in  September,  1782,  when 
he  wrote  to  Livingston,  as  he  had  already  said  to  Franklin,  that 
France  was  postponing  British  acknowledgment  of  American  /' 
independence  until  France  and  Spain  had  secured  their  own  / 
selfish  objects;  that  both  France  and  Spain  would  dispute  the 
extension  of  the  United  States  westward  to  the  Mississippi  River ; 
and  that  Spain  would  demand  for  herself  a  monopoly  of  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  Yergennes,  as  is  well  known,  never  failed  to  urge 
upon  England  that  the  United  States  should  be  excluded  from 
the  Newfoundland  fisheries,  "lest  they  should  become  a  nursery 
for  seamen,"  and  he  was  almost  ready  to  join  England  in  check- 


122  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ing  the  rising  power  of  the  United  States.  When  Jay  and 
Aranda,  the  Spanish  minister  at  Paris,  discussed  the  boundaries 
of  the  United  States  as  they  should  be  established  by  the  treaty 
of  peace,  Jay  earnestly  claimed  for  the  United  States  the  whole 
territory  westward  to  the  Mississippi  north  of  the  Florida  line. 
Aranda  opposed  this  claim,  insisting  that  the  Northwest  Terri 
tory  should  be  restored  to  England,  or  else  given  to  Spain.  Ver- 
gennes  said  nothing  at  this  time,  but  his  secretary,  Rayneval, 
expressed  the  opinion  that  America  was  claiming  too  much,  and 
we  can  scarcely  suppose  he  would  have  said  that  without  Ver- 
gennes's  approval,  and  without  knowing  that  it  coincided  with 
Vergennes's  own  views. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  question  of  Oswald's  commission. 
That  amiable  envoy  readily  saw  the  point  involved,  and  person 
ally  sought  amendment  of  his  commission,  so  as  to  meet  the  just 
demands  of  the  Americans.  The  British  government  at  first  de- 
murred.  Franklin,  the  most  conciliatory  of  men,  would  have 
yielded  and  let  the  commission  stand.  But  Jay,  who  was  the 
giant  and  the  hero  of  all  these  negotiations,  was  inexorable,  and 
Adams  cordially  supported  him.  In  September,  1782,  the 
French  government  sent  Rayneval,  Vergennes's  confidential  sec 
retary,  to  England,  to  urge  the  British  government  to  hold  out 
firmly  against  the  American  demands  in  the  Mississippi  Valley 
and  to  support  the  French  and  Spanish  proposals.  That  is  to 
say,  our  ally  joined  forces,  or  attempted  to  join  forces,  with  our 
opponent  against  us!  Jay,  learning  of  this,  sent  Benjamin 
Vaughan  to  England  to  counteract  the  influence  of  Rayneval. 
In  this  Vaughan  succeeded.  He  kept  the  British  government 
from  committing  itself  to  the  French  and  Spanish  scheme  for 
spoliating  the  United  States.  He  did  more.  He  raised  again 
the  question  of  Oswald's  commission.  Shelburne  asked  him, 
"Is  a  new  commission  necessary?"  "It  is,"  replied  Vaughan. 
Forthwith  a  new  one  was  issued,  framed  and  phrased  as  Jay  de 
sired.  That  incident  marked  the  turning  point  in  the  negotia 
tions.  Thereafter  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  worked 
together,  ignoring  France  and  Spain. 

The  military  and  naval  incidents  of  1782,  indeed,  were  well 
calculated  to  affect  materially  the  attitude  not  only  of  England 
but  also  of  Spain  -and  France  toward  the  subject  of  peace-mak- 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        123 

ing.  Rodney's  tremendous  victory  over  the  French  at  Mar 
tinique  in  April,  Elliot's  heroic  defense  of  Gibraltar  in  Septem 
ber,  and  Howe's  relief  of  that  fortress  in  October,  quite  turned 
the  scale  in  British  eyes.  Before  those  occurrences  the  British 
government  might  have  been  inclined  for  prudential  reasons  to 
defer  to  French  and  Spanish  demands  in  negotiating  with 
America.  After  them  it  felt  able  to  regard  those  powers  as  neg 
ligible  quantities  and  to  deal  with  America  without  regard  for 
them.  Spain,  in  the  same  occurrences,  had  lost  all  hope  of  re 
gaining  Gibraltar  and  Jamaica,  and  even  her  Bourbon  pride  was 
convinced  of  the  futility  of  longer  holding  out  for  those  objects 
as  the  sine  qua  non  of  peace.  Nor  was  she  without  some  conso 
lation.  West  Florida  and  Minorca  were  to  be  restored  to  her, 
and  the  latter  was  only  a  little  less  important  in  her  eyes  than 
Gibraltar  itself.  As  for  France  she  had  no  such  gains,  and  she 
had  met  with  heavy  losses.  But  she  was  not  without  cause  for 
seeking  peace.  The  disaster  of  Martinique  had  hopelessly  crip 
pled  her  power  at  sea,  and  had  shown  her  the  folly  of  further 
fighting.  Moreover,  she  had  really  gained  her  prime  object.  In 
the  just  words  of  Botta :  ' '  The  Court  of  Versailles  had  attained 
the  object  it  had  most  at  heart,  that  is,  the  separation  of  the 
Colonies  from  the  Mother  Country."  With  that  France  might 
well  be  content.  The  one  other  belligerent,  Holland,  was  ready 
to  follow  France  in  making  peace  with  England  on  almost  any 
terms. 

There  were  therefore  ample  reasons  why  all  these  powers 
should  unite  harmoniously  in  the  work  of  peace-making.  But 
they  did  not.  France  and  Spain  persisted  in  holding  aloof  and 
in  trying  to  make  mischief,  France  especially  striving  to  the  last 
to  fetter  and  injure  her  nominal  ally  to  the  utmost  of  her  ability. 
Thus  on  November  10  Adams  told  Vergennes  that  the  United 
States  and  England  were  unable  to  agree  upon  two  points,  to  wit, 
the  indemnity  to  the  American  Tories  and  the  Penobscot  bound 
ary.  Vergennes 's  reply  was,  again,  to  take  the  British  side 
against  his  American  allies.  In  this  we  shall  probably  do  him 
no  injustice  if  we  accept  Adams's  belief,  that  his  purpose  was  to 
encourage  the  maintenance  of  "a  French  party  and  an  English 
party"  in  America,  and  thus  weaken  and  distract  the  young  re 
public  through  division  of  its  counsels. 


124  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

We  may  indeed  regard  as  substantially  accurate  and  not  un 
grateful  or  unjust  the  summary  of  French  policy  toward 
America  in  the  Revolution  and  in  the  subsequent  peace-making 
which  Adams  gave  to  Jonathan  Jackson  in  a  letter  written  in  the 
fall  of  1782.  "In  substance/'  he  said,  "it  has  been  this:  In 
assistance  afforded  us  in  naval  force  and  in  money  to  keep  us 
from  succumbing,  and  nothing  more ;  to  prevent  us  from  ridding 
ourselves  wholly  from  our  enemies;  to  prevent  us  from  growing 
powerful  or  rich;  to  prevent  us  from  obtaining  acknowledg 
ments  of  our  independence  by  other  foreign  powers,  and  to  pre 
vent  us  from  obtaining  consideration  in  Europe,  or  any  advan 
tage  in  the  peace  but  what  is  expressly  stipulated  in  the  treaty ; 
to  deprive  us  of  the  grand  fishery,  the  Mississippi  River,  the 
western  lands,  and  to  saddle  us  with  the  Tories."  If  we  add 
to  the  "assistance  afforded"  the  service  rendered  by  the  French 
army  at  Yorktown,  which  was  welcome  though  not  essential,  we 
shall  have  in  Adams's  terse  phrases  a  complete  presentation  of 
the  French  attitude  toward  America. 

Adams  appreciated  the  situation.  So  did  Jay.  In  fact,  Jay 
was  probably  the  first  of  all  to  do  so  and  to  lay  bare  the  devious 
ways  of  French  diplomacy.  At  any  rate,  he  took  the  lead  in  cut 
ting  the  Gordian  knot.  Under  the  orders  of  Congress,  the 
American  commissioners  could  make  no  treaty  with  England 
save  with  French  consent.  But  France  would  not  consent  to 
any  treaty  the  terms  of  which  were  satisfactory  to  America. 
If  then  the  orders  were  obeyed,  either  the  welfare  of  America 
must  be  sacrificed  in  the  making  of  an  unsatisfactory  and  inju 
rious  treaty,  or  the  work  of  the  commissioners  must  fail.  Con 
fronted  with  this  dilemma,  the  impetuous  and  intrepid  Jay  de 
termined  upon  a  heroic  course.  He  would  defy  and  violate  the 
commands  of  the  Congress  which  had  commissioned  him,  by  mak 
ing  a  treaty  with  England  without  regard  to  the  advice,  consent, 
or  policy  of  France.  He  proposed  this  to  Franklin,  with  whom 
he  was  then  in  Paris,  Adams  being  at  The  Hague.  Franklin 
disapproved  it.  He  had  lived  long  in  France  and  had  been  the 
recipient  of  the  most  flattering  attentions,  from  both  the  court 
and  people,  and  he  naturally  cherished  the  most  amiable  senti 
ments  toward  France  and  also  a  great  degree  of  confidence  in 
and  gratitude  toward  her.  His  temperament  was  naturally  con- 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        125 

ciliatory  and  pacific,  and  he  was  something  of  a  stickler  for  strict 
obedience  to  orders.  The  action  proposed  by  Jay  would,  he 
thought,  be  offensive  and  painful  to  France,  and  it  would  be  a 
breach  of  instructions.  ' '  Would  you  break  your  instructions  ? ' ' 
he  asked.  "Yes!"  replied  Jay,  "as  I  break  this  pipe!"  And 
taking  from  his  lips  the  long  clay  "churchwarden"  which  he  had 
been  smoking,  he  dashed  it  into  fragments  in  the  fireplace. 
Franklin,  however,  still  hesitated  and  demurred  and  Jay  was  , 
thus  compelled  to  wait.  But  he  did  not  wait  long.  Adams  soon 
came  back  from  The  Hague,  and  Jay  at  once  laid  the  plan  before 
him.  Adams  was  delighted  with  it,  and  instantly  approved  it, 
with  enthusiasm.  "It  is  glory,"  he  afterward  declared,  "to 
have  broken  such  infamous  orders!"  If  not  infamous,  they 
were  certainly  ill-advised  and  would,  if  slavishly  followed,  have 
proved  disastrous.  Before  the  united  persuasions  of  Jay  and 
Adams,  Franklin  presently  yielded,  and  the  policy  of  Jay  was 
carried  out.  Negotiations  were  conducted  directly  between  ) 
America  and  England,  and  they  made  rapid  progress  toward  a 
satisfactory  conclusion. 

Vergennes  and  his  colleagues  remained  in  ignorance  of  what 
was  going  on.  This  was  partly  because  of  the  secrecy  of  the 
Anglo-American  negotiations,  but  more  because  of  Vergennes 's 
incredulous  contempt  for  the  Americans.  With  his  army  of 
spies  and  keyhole  listeners  he  could  have  ascertained  what  was 
going  on  if  he  had  tried  to  do  so.  But  he  did  not  try  because 
he  did  not  suppose  that  the  Americans  were  capable  of  doing 
anything  of  importance.  He  wrote  to  Luzerne  in  October :  "It 
behooves  us  to  leave  them  to  their  illusions,  to  do  everything  we 
can  to  make  them  fancy  that  we  share  them,  and  unostentatiously 
to  defeat  any  attempts  to  which  these  illusions  may  carry  them, 
if  our  cooperation  is  required.  The  Americans,"  he  added, 
"have  all  the  presumption  of  ignorance,  but  there  is  reason  to 
expect  that  experience  will  ere  long  enlighten  them."  Such 
were  the  base  treachery  and  deceit  of  the  statesman  who  professed 
to  be  our  friend,  and  who  afterward  expressed  such  astonishment 
and  grief  at  our  lack  of  confidence  in  him  and  our  ingratitude 
and  wickedness  in  making  a  treaty  without  consulting  him ! 

The  Americans  pursued  their  plan,  with  much  success.  It 
was  at  the  end  of  October  that  Jay's  bold  proposal  was  adopted. 


126  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

On  November  30  a  provisional  treaty  was  concluded  and  signed 
by  the  American  and  British  commissioners.  It  was  not  to  be 
made  permanent  and  effective,  it  is  true,  until  a  treaty  should 
be  made  between  England  and  France,  and  until  it  should  re 
ceive  the  approval  of  France.  But  it  was  admirably  designed  to 
"force  the  hand"  of  the  French  government,  and  to  compel  it 
to  approve  the  Anglo-American  treaty  and  to  conclude  for  itself 
a  treaty  with  Great  Britain.  Such  in  fact  were  its  results. 
When  Vergennes  learned  what  had  been  done,  the  fact  was  ac 
complished  and  the  provisional  treaty  was  ready  to  be  laid  before 
him  for  the  approval  which  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case  he 
could  not  withhold.  He  found  himself  completely  outwitted  by 
the  very  men  whom  he  had  so  despised  and  had  sought  to  delude 
and  make  mere  puppets  in  his  hands.  More,  he  found  himself 
beaten  and  humiliated  by  the  very  scheme  which  he  himself  had 
devised  for  his  own  sinister  ends.  He  was  not  willing  to  have 
Adams  alone  conduct  the  peace  negotiations,  but,  through  most 
unwarrantable  meddling  in  American  affairs,  compelled  the  ap 
pointment  of  Jay  and  Franklin  to  be  his  colleagues.  And  now 
Jay  had  administered  to  him  the  most  stinging  rebuke  and  most 
humiliating  defeat  in  all  his  career.  This  defeat  he  took  with 
bad  grace.  He  wrote  a  bitter  protest  to  Franklin,  in  a  tone  of 
injured  innocence  that  contrasts  damningly  with  his  own  pre 
vious  utterances  to  Luzerne;  to  which  Franklin  replied  with  a 
masterpiece  of  tactful  and  conciliatory  diplomacy.  Yergennes 
also  wrote  to  Luzerne  a  letter,  which  he  afterward  counter 
manded,  though  too  late,  urging  him  to  protest  to  Congress 
against  the  irregular  conduct  of  the  American  commissioners. 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  then  the  foreign  secretary  of  Congress, 
actually  sent  to  the  commissioners  a  letter  of  rebuke,  and  wished 
them  to  seek  to  propitiate  Vergennes  by  humbly  apologizing  to 
him  and  by  revealing  to  him  a  certain  secret  clause  in  the  treaty 
which  they  had  pledged  themselves  to  Great  Britain  not  to  di 
vulge!  After  that  we  may  almost  believe  Vergennes 's  boast, 
that  it  was  through  his  influence,  or  at  his  nomination,  through 
Luzerne,  that  Livingston  had  been  elected  to  his  place ;  and  that 
Livingston  was  merely  his  subservient  lackey. 

Nevertheless,  Vergennes  was  more  frightened  than  angered  at 
the  victory  of  the  Americans  over  his  double  dealing.     He  was 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        127 

chagrined.  But  he  was  more  alarmed,  lest  America  and  Great 
Britain  should  now  join  hands  against  France.  For  a  time  it 
seemed  to  him  as  though,  in  separating  the  colonies  from  the 
mother  country,  instead  of  hopelessly  weakening  his  enemy  he 
had  raised  up  two  foes  against  France  instead  of  only  one. 
With  that  menace  before  him  he  deemed  it  discreet  to  swallow 
his  wounded  pride.  He  made  haste  to  accept  the  explanation 
made  to  him  by  Franklin,  and  further  to  bid  for  the  continued 
favor  of  America  he  offered  this  country  another  loan. 

The  treaty  of  November  30,  1782,  was  merely  a  provisional  one, 
for  making  peace  but  not  dealing  with  the  subject  of  commerce. 
The  death  of  Shelburne  and  the  consequent  change  of  ministry 
in  England  deferred  the  completion  of  the  work-  for  nearly  a 
year.  The  same  commissioners  for  America  remained  in  place, 
but  Oswald,  for  Great  Britain,  was  replaced  by  David  Hartley, 
' '  the  good  Hartley, ' '  Franklin 's  friend,  who  for  many  years  had 
been  an  earnest  advocate  of  the  American  cause  in  the  British 
Parliament.  The  definitive  treaty  was  finally  made  on  September 
3,  1783.  Under  that  instrument  the  British  government  recog 
nized  in  the  fullest  manner  the  independence  of  the  United 
States,  and  conceded  to  this  country  the  whole  Northwest  and 
Southwest  territories,  extending  westward  to  the  Mississippi 
River  and  southward  to  the  Florida  line.  The  provisional 
treaty  had  contained  a  secret  clause  (the  one  which  Livingston 
had  asked  the  commissioners  to  reveal  to  Vergennes)  concern 
ing  the  southern  boundary,  to  wit:  That  if  Great  Britain 
should  retain  possession  of  Florida,  the  boundary  between 
Florida  and  the  United  States  should  be  drawn  eastward  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo  River,  in  latitude  32  degrees  30  minutes, 
but  if  Florida  was  surrendered  to  Spain,  then  it  should  be 
drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Red  River,  in  latitude  31  de 
grees.  Between  these  two  lines,  therefore,  was  a  strip  of  ter 
ritory  nearly  a  hundred  miles  wide  from  north  to  south,  and 
nearly  five  hundred  from  east  to  west,  comprising  the  south 
ern  parts  of  the  States  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  which 
the  United  States  and  England  agreed  should  be  a  part  of  Flor 
ida  if  Florida  belong  to  England,  but  which  should  not  belong 
to  Florida,  but  come  to  the  United  States,  if  Florida  were  as 
signed  to  Spain!  That  territory  formed  the  " Yazoo  lands,'* 


128  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

concerning  which  we  afterward  had  an  acrimonious  dispute  with 
Spain.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the  equity  and  morals  of  that 
secret  compact  are  not  evident.  The  territory  in  question  either 
did  or  did  not  belong  with  Florida.  If  it  did,  then  it  belonged 
with  Florida  even  if  the  latter  were  assigned  to  Spain.  If  it  did 
not,  then  it  did  not  belong  with  Florida  even  if  the  latter  were 
retained  by  England.  The  double  dealing  of  Spain,  however, 
and  her  ill-concealed  enmity  toward  the  United  States,  were 
ample  explanations  of  this  trick  of  the  negotiators.  They  were 
also,  from  the  point  of  view  of  ordinary  human  nature,  ample 
provocation  to  it.  The  Americans  knew  that  France  and  Spain 
were  playing  them  false  and  were  secretly  trying  to  betray  and 
sacrifice  America,  and  it  was  not  unnatural  that  in  return  they 
should  thus  retaliate  against  those  whom  they  knew  to  be  their 
enemies.  And  bad  as  their  device  was,  it  was  far  less  reprehen 
sible  than  the  machinations  of  France  and  Spain  against  this 
country.  America  was  under  no  obligations  whatever  to  Spain, 
but  was  quite  free  to  despoil  her  in  any  way  she  could.  France, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  bound  to  America  in  the  strongest  and 
most  sacred  fashion ;  yet  here  she  was  deliberately  seeking  to  de 
spoil  this  country,  and  conniving  with  its  foes  for  its  ruin. 
Nevertheless,  with  all  this  provocation,  we  must  regard  that 
secret  provision  in  the  treaty  about  the  Yazoo  lands  as  unjustifi 
able,  and  as  a  regrettable  blemish  upon  our  early  diplomacy. 

The  treaty  further  confirmed  the  United  States  in  the  free  en 
joyment  of  the  fisheries  on  the  Newfoundland  Banks  and  in  a 
limited  use  of  the  shores  of  Newfoundland,  Nova  Scotia,  and 
other  British  territories.  Congress  was  to  recommend  to  the 
separate  States  a  generous  treatment  of  the  Tories,  or  British 
Loyalists,  a  recommendation  which  had  no  mandatory  force  and 
which  was  not  in  fact  generally  followed.  The  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi  River,  from  source  to  mouth,  was  to  be  "  forever 
free  and  open"  to  Englishmen  as  well  as  Americans — a  provision 
which  was  from  the  beginning  a  dead  letter,  seeing  that  then  and 
for  years  afterward  the  lower  part  of  that  river  was  a  territorial 
water  of  Spain,  and  as  such  was  subject  to  her  control  and  open 
to  navigation  by  others  only  through  her  consent,  which  was  by 
no  means  freely  granted.  It  was,  indeed,  foolish  to  put  that  pro 
vision  into  the  treaty,  for  two  major  reasons.  One  was,  as  we 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        129 

have  said,  that  the  lower  part  of  the  river  belonged  wholly  to 
Spain,  and  therefore  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  were 
practically  trying,  in  a  treaty  between  themselves,  to  regulate 
and  control  the  property  of  a  third  power  which  was  not  at  all  a 
party  to  the  treaty.  The  other  reason  was,  that  Great  Britain 
had  no  claim  whatever  to  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  any 
more  than  to  that  of  the  Hudson  or  the  Delaware,  seeing  that 
at  no  point  did  it  touch  her  territories.  If  its  headwaters  had 
been  in  Canada,  she  might  have  sought  the  right  to  use  it  as  an 
outlet  to  the  sea.  But  they  were  not.  From  source  to  mouth  the 
river  touched  no  lands  but  those  of  the  United  States  and  of 
Spain ;  unless,  of  course,  West  Florida  and  the  Yazoo  lands  were 
definitely  assigned  to  Great  Britain.  In  that  case  Great  Brit 
ain  would  have  controlled  one  shore  of  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
river,  and  a  stipulation  for  American  navigation  of  that  part  of 
the  river  would  have  been  legitimate  and  useful. 

When  the  definite  treaty  of  peace  was  signed  at  Paris  on  Sep 
tember  3, 1783,  by  David  Hartley  on  behalf  of  Great  Britain  and 
by  John  Adams,  Benjamin  Franklin,  and  John  Jay  on  behalf  of 
the  United  States,  it  was  suggested  that  the  act  be  done  in  the 
presence  of  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  Austria  and  Rus 
sia,  as  a  complimentary  recognition  of  the  offers  of  those  powers 
to  mediate  and  of  their  efforts  to  end  the  war.  To  this  the  Brit 
ish  government  objected,  on  the  ground  that  the  transactions  con 
cerned  only  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  and  that  no 
other  power  had  any  interest  in  them.  This  was  probably  not 
so  much  because  of  opposition  to  the  general  principle  of  friendly 
mediation  as  to  a  feeling  that  England  and  America,  even  in 
their  quarrel,  were  much  more  closely  related  to  each  other  than 
to  any  other  nations,  and  that  therefore  they  should  settle  their 
family  differences  between  themselves,  without  external  aid.  In 
that  view  of  the  case  the  British  refusal  may  be  regarded  as  hav 
ing  set  an  interesting  precedent  for  the  solidarity  of  the  Anglo 
Saxon  nations,  which  has  been  followed  on  some  subsequent  oc 
casions. 

The  efforts  of  Austria  and  Russia  for  mediation  in  1781  re 
quire  a  word  of  explanation.  In  1779  the  great  empress,  Maria 
Theresa,  who  was  a  sincere  lover  of  peace,  wrote  with  her  own 
hand  to  Charles  III  of  Spain,  to  dissuade  him,  if  possible,  from 

VOL.  1—9 


i 

: 


130  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

war  with  England.  In  that  she  was  not  successful,  but  a  little 
later  in  the  same  year  she,  or  her  ministers,  made  an  offer  of 
mediation  between  England  and  France,  which  likewise  failed. 
At  that  time  not  a  word  was  said  concerning  America,  and  Aus 
tria  practically  ignored  the  very  existence  of  this  country.  Wil 
liam  Lee  had,  it  is  true,  been  commissioned  as  American  minis 
ter  to  Austria,  but,  because  of  Austria's  unwillingness  to  offend 
Great  Britain  by  receiving  him,  he  was  never  recognized  in  that 
capacity  and  therefore  accomplished  nothing.  In  1781,  when 
Joseph  II,  son  of  Maria  Theresa,  was  on  the  Austrian  throne,  his 
minister,  Prince  Kaunitz,  prepared  for  an  international  peace 
congress  at  Vienna,  under  the  joint  patronage  of  Austria  and 
Russia,  and  in  doing  so  accepted  the  advice  of  the  French  foreign 
minister,  Vergennes,  that  the  United  States  should  be  invited  to 
participate  in  it  and  to  conduct  at  it  negotiations  for  peace  with 
Great  Britain  at  the  same  time  that  the  European  powers  were 
seeking  peace  among  themselves.  The  United  States,  however, 
would  not  accept  the  invitation,  and  Great  Britain  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  such  a  scheme.  The  refusal  of  the  United 
States  was  voiced  by  John  Adams,  who  would  not  enter  the  con 
gress  unless  the  other  powers  represented  there  would  first  recog 
nize  the  independence  of  the  United  States,  which  neither  Austria 
nor  Russia  was  willing  to  do.  Great  Britain,  on  the  other  hand, 
refused  to  enter  the  congress  unless  France  would  first  withdraw 
from  her  alliance  with  the  United  States.  Prince  Kaunitz,  for 
the  Austrian  government,  thereupon  laid  upon  Great  Britain 
the  blame  for  the  failure  of  the  congress,  and  held  that  the  Brit 
ish  government  was  in  the  wrong  in  its  treatment  of  the  Ameri 
can  colonies,  and  that  it  ought  to  make  concessions  to  them  so  as 
to  retain  their  loyalty  instead  of  driving  them  to  rebel.  How 
little  he  cared  for  America,  however,  or  indeed  for  the  cause  of 
peace,  was  clearly  shown  in  his  comments  upon  the  war.  "As 
for  us,"  he  said,  "there  is  more  to  gain  than  to  lose  by  the  con 
tinuation  of  the  war,  which  becomes  useful  to  us  by  the  mutual 
exhaustion  of  those  who  carry  it  on."  Never  was  there  a  more 
cynical  exhibition  of  the  spirit  of  lago  in  international  affairs : 

"...  Now,  whether  he  kill  Cassio, 

Or  Cassio  him,  or  each  do  kill  the  other, 

Every  way  makes  my  gain." 


FEIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        131 

The  fact  is  that  Austria  was  at  that  time  one  of  the  last  States 
from  which  real  sympathy  with  America  could  reasonably  have 
been  expected.  Joseph  II  was  a  monarch  of  liberal  theories  but 
despotic  practices;  autocratic,  ambitious,  and  insincere.  He 
tried  to  pose  as  the  friend  of  both  England  and  France,  but  was 
really  the  friend  of  neither.  Vergennes  described  Austria  under 
his  rule  as  in  name  an  ally  but  in  fact  a  rival  of  France.  On 
the  whole,  Austrian  influence  was  detrimental  to  the  American 
cause.  The  unconcealed  enmity  of  Russia  has  already  been  de 
scribed.  Beyond  doubt  it  was  fitting  and  it  was  well  that  Great 
Britain  and  America  refused  to  enter  a  congress  with  those 
powers  in  1781,  and  that  they  ignored  them  in  the  making  of 
the  peace  treaty  of  1783.  It  may  be  added  that  Vergennes  told 
Franklin  that  while  the  offer  of  mediation,  in  March,  1781,  was 
not  unwelcome  to  the  French  government,  yet  it  could  not  be 
accepted  by  it,  since  the  concurrence  of  Spain  would  be  necessary 
and  it  could  probably  not  be  secured.  But  he  advised  Franklin 
to  urge  Congress  to  accept  the  offer. 

In  1782,  John  Adams  said :  '  *  It  is  obvious  that  all  the  powers 
of  Europe  will  be  continuously  manceuvering  with  us  to  work  us 
into  their  real  or  imaginary  balances  of  power!"  But,  for  rea 
sons  which  we  shall  not  find  it  difficult  to  discover  and  which 
we  shall  have  to  regard  as  convincing,  they  did  not  generally 
seek  any  relations  with  us.  Immediately  after  the  making  of 
the  definitive  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain  in  1783,  several 
European  nations  and  one  African  State  did  make  overtures  to 
Franklin  for  treaties  with  the  United  States,  and  with  three  of 
them  such  conventions  were  concluded.  The  negotiations  with 
Denmark,  Austria,  Portugal,  and  Hamburg  were  fruitless,  but 
those  with  Sweden,  Prussia,  and  Morocco  resulted  in  the  mak 
ing  of  treaties.  Those  with  Sweden  and  Prussia  were  treaties 
of  amity  and  commerce,  and  that  with  Morocco  was  one  of  peace 
and  friendship.  The  signing  of  the  treaty  with  Prussia  was 
Franklin's  last  diplomatic  act  abroad,  and  it  was  one  in  which 
he  must  have  taken  particular  pleasure.  For  that  treaty  pro 
vided  for  the  abolition  of  privateering,  and  for  the  holding  of 
private  property  inviolable  at  sea,  the  same  as  on  land.  Those 
two  principles  were  dear  to  Franklin's  heart.  They  were  a 
practical  extension  of  Frederick  the  Great's  famous  principle 


132  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  "free  ships,  free  goods."  They  were  at  that  time  far  in  ad 
vance  of  the  world;  and  indeed  even  now  they  are  not  fully  ac 
cepted  and  adopted  in  international  law.  But  it  is  pleasant  to 
remember  that  at  that  early  date,  in  one  of  the  earliest  treaties 
made  by  the  young  republic,  those  just  and  beneficent  principles 
were  promulgated  to  a  reluctant  and  unsympathetic  world.  It 
is  to  be  remembered,  by  the  way,  in  passing,  as  somewhat  strange, 
that  despite  the  profusion  of  talk  in  France  and  Holland  about 
"free  ships  and  free  goods, "  no  mention  of  that  principle  was 
made  in  the  first  treaties  made  by  those  countries  with  the  United 
States. 

During  the  Revolution,  then,  and  during  the  post-revolution 
ary  period  of  the  Confederation,  down  to  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  in  1789,  only  a  dozen  formal 
relationships  were  entered  into,  with  only  half  that  number  of 
foreign  powers.  To  recapitulate:  With  France  we  made  a 
treaty  of  amity  and  commerce,  and  a  treaty  of  alliance  against 
Great  Britain,  in  February,  1778 ;  two  contracts  concerning  war 
loans,  in  July,  1782,  and  February,  1783;  and  a  consular  con 
vention,  in  November,  1788.  With  Great  Britain  we  made  a 
preliminary  treaty  of  peace  in  November,  1782,  and  a  final 
treaty  of  peace  and  amity  in  September,  1783.  With  Morocco, 
we  made  a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship  in  January,  1787. 
With  the  Netherlands  we  made  a  treaty  of  peace  and  commerce 
in  September,  1785.  And  with  Sweden  we  made  a  treaty  of 
amity  and  commerce  in  April,  1783. 

Such  were  the  international  relationships  of  the  United  States 
in  the  revolutionary  era;  though  the  international  influence  of 
this  nation  was  much  more  important  than  its  technical  diplo 
macy.  For  the  Revolution  did  far  more  than  merely  to  estab 
lish  the  independence  of  the  United  States.  It  brought  about 
the  end  of  personal  government  in  Great  Britain.  It  effected 
for  a  time  the  commercial  emancipation  of  Ireland.  France 
and  Spain  purposely  connived  at  prolonging  the  war,  so  as  to 
make  it  as  costly,  as  exhausting  and  therefore  as  ruinous  as  pos 
sible  to  both  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States ;  but  before  it 
ended,  even  because  of  that  prolongation  of  it,  Great  Britain 
wrested  from  them  the  command  of  the  sea  and  a  large  part  of 
their  colonial  empires,  while  the  United  States  emerged  from  the 


FRIENDS  AND  FOES  IN  PEACE-MAKING        133 

struggle  in  full  possession  of  the  spoils  of  war  of  which  they  had 
endeavored  to  deprive  her.  The  net  result  was  that  friendship 
between  America  and  Great  Britain  was  restored  in  a  larger  de 
gree  than  it  had  known  for  many  years,  and  American  friend 
ship  with  Holland  was  confirmed,  through  the  operations  of  nat 
ural  affinity.  The  artificial  alliance  with  France  was  not  lasting. 
Spain  remained  hostile.  The  rest  of  the  world  was  expectant 
but  unsympathetic. 


VI 

CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION 

WASHINGTON,  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  and  just 
before  his  retirement  from  the  command  of  the  army, 
bestowed  upon  the  Thirteen  States  a  gift  of  inestimable  value, 
which  they  then  quite  failed  to  appreciate  and  were  slow  to  util 
ize.  That  was  the  advice  which  he  gave  in  his  circular  letter  to 
the  chief  magistrates  of  the  various  States  and  which  he  desired 
to  have  considered  as  his  legacy  to  the  people  whose  independence 
he  had  won.  Of  the  four  cardinal  points  of  that  remarkable 
document,  only  one,  the  first,  is  pertinent  to  the  present  subject. 
That  was,  that  there  must  be  an  indissoluble  union  of  all  the 
States,  under  a  single  national  government,  and  that  this  central 
government  must  have  plenary  powers  to  make  its  authority  ef 
fective.  In  this  he  spoke  from  fulness  of  observation  and  of 
sometimes  bitter  experience.  The  constantly  increasing  evils  of 
the  second  Continental  Congress,  which  at  times  threatened  to 
frustrate  the  great  design  of  American  union  and  liberty,  were 
due  to  the  lack  of  such  a  system.  Especially  were  the  weak 
nesses  of  our  foreign  relations  attributable  to  that  cause,  and 
especially  was  a  strong  central  government  necessary  to  our  as 
sumption  and  maintenance  of  a  worthy,  responsible,  and  authori 
tative  place  among  the  sovereign  nations  of  the  globe. 

This  was  recognized  clearly  by  Washington,  and  by  others, 
but  unfortunately  not  by  the  American  people  generally,  nor 
even  by  all  of  their  influential  leaders.  It  was  also  recognized 
abroad,  where  there  was  little  confidence  in  the  perpetuity  of  the 
new  order  of  things.  Some,  with  George  III  of  England,  ex 
pected  the  Thirteen  States  to  begin  quarreling  and  fighting 
among  themselves.  Others,  with  Frederick  the  Great  of  Prussia, 
believed  that  the  territory  of  the  Thirteen  States  was  too  large  to 
form  a  single  and  enduring  republic.  They  pointed  out  that 
the  Roman  republic  was  transformed  into  an  empire  through  too 

134 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          135 

great  expansion  of  its  area.  The  only  successful  republics  were 
small  in  area,  like  Holland,  Venice,  and  Switzerland.  There 
fore  they  expected  either  that  the  Thirteen  States  would  remain 
separate  or  at  least  form  several  groups,  or  that  the  whole  would 
presently  become  a  monarchy. 

Practically  no  response  was  made  to  the  sage  advice  of  Wash 
ington,  at  least  for  several  years.  Meantime  the  States  kept  on 
under  their  Articles  of  Confederation,  which  had  been  adopted 
on  November  15,  1777.  These,  of  course,  utterly  failed  to  realize 
the  conception  of  an  efficient  central  government,  or  of  a  nation 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  There  was  no  central  or  general 
authority,  save  the  Congress.  So  far  as  foreign  relations  were 
concerned,  they  were  to  be  conducted  by  the  Congress,  which 
was  to  have  the  sole  power  of  making  war  or  peace,  of  sending 
and  receiving  ambassadors,  and  of  making  treaties  and  alliances. 
But  the  individual  States  were  left  free,  in  defiance  of  all  treaties, 
to  establish  all  their  own  separate  tariff  systems.  Thus,  if  the 
Congress  made  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  a  foreign  nation,  pro 
viding  for  free  trade  between  it  and  America,  any  State  could 
at  will  annul  that  treaty  by  prescribing  a  tariff  or  even  by  pro 
hibiting  all  commerce  with  the  nation  in  question.  Moreover, 
each  State  had  its  own  code  of  laws  dealing  with  religious  liberty, 
personal  and  property  rights,  and  many  other  matters  directly 
affecting  the  status  of  citizens  or  subjects  of  other  lands,  and  in 
this  diversity  there  was  danger  of  immeasurable  embarrassment 
and  trouble. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  one  of  the  earliest  diplomatic 
controversies  after  the  Revolution  had  to  do  with  religious  af 
fairs.  This  was,  indeed,  in  the  interval  between  the  preliminary 
and  the  ultimate  treaty  of  peace.  In  July,  1783,  the  apostolic 
nuncio  in  Paris  requested  Franklin  to  forward  to  Congress  a 
note  explaining  the  necessity  for  a  change  in  the  office  of  apos 
tolic  vicar  for  the  United  States  and  asking  Congress  to  ratify 
the  new  appointment.  Franklin,  of  course,  complied,  and  the 
matter  was  laid  before  Congress,  which  discussed  it  at  some 
length,  and,  for  a  wonder,  disposed  of  it  in  the  wisest  possible 
manner.  Obviously  it  was  a  matter  of  much  importance,  since 
its  decision  would  set  a  precedent  for  aH-time  for  the  relations 
of  church  and  state  in  this  country.  In  mo!1^  than  one  of  the 


136  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

States  there  was  practically  a  state  church,  and  some  of  the  mem 
bers  of  Congress  favored  taking  the  desired  action  upon  the  ap 
pointment  of  the  apostolic  vicar.  Had  that  been  done,  the  young 
republic  would  have  been  committed  to  the  policy  of  a  state 
religion,  or  at  least  of  an  organic  relationship  between  church 
and  state ;  and  would  have  entailed  upon  itself  the  endless  vexa 
tion  and  grave  troubles  which  such  a  connection  invariably 
causes.  Happily,  wiser  counsels  prevailed,  and  Franklin  was  di 
rected  to  reply  to  the  nuncio  that  "the  subject  of  his  applica 
tion  being  purely  spiritual,  it  is  without  the  jurisdiction  and 
power  of  Congress,  who  have  no  authority  to  permit  or  refuse 
it."  The  importance  and  value  of  this  action,  to  all  the  sub 
sequent  history  of  the  nation,  are  scarcely  to  be  overestimated. 
It  was  the  sure  precursor  of  the  constitutional  prohibition  of 
any  state  church  or  of  any  governmental  meddling  with  religious 
affairs,  and  it  was  a  priceless  precaution  against  our  being  drawn 
into  complications  with  alien  powers  in  which — as  at  that  time 
was  all  but  universally  the  case — church  and  state  were  united 
to  the  detriment  of  both. 

Another  diplomatic  incident  of  this  same  period  is  worthy  of 
passing  notice,  more  as  a  curiosity  than  for  any  importance  to 
our  foreign  relations.  At  the  end  of  March,  1783,  the  burgo 
masters  and  Senate  of  the  free  city  of  Hamburg,  Germany,  ad 
dressed  to  Congress  a  letter  which  ran  in  part  as  follows : 

"Right  Noble,  High,  Mighty,  Most  Honorable  Lords:  Since 
by  the  preliminary  articles  of  peace  lately  between  the  high  bel 
ligerent  powers  concluded,  the  illustrious  United  States  of  North 
America  have  been  acknowledged  free,  sovereign,  and  independ 
ent,  and  now,  since  European  powers  are  courting  in  rivalry  the 
friendship  of  your  High  Mightinesses, 

"We,  impressed  with  the  most  lively  sensations  on  the  illus 
trious  event,  the  wonder  of  this  and  the  most  remote  future  ages, 
and  desirous  fully  to  testify  the  part  which  we  take  therein,  do 
hereby  offer  your  High  Mightinesses  our  service  and  attachment 
to  the  cause. 

"And  in  the  most  sincere  disposition  of  the  heart,  we  take 
the  honor  to  wish,  so  far  as  from  Omnipotent  Providence  do  we 
pray,  that  the  most  illustrious  Republic  of  the  United  States  of 
America  may,  during  the  remotest  centuries,  enjoy  all  imagin- 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          137 

able  advantages  to  be  derived  from  that  sovereignty  which  they 
gained  by  prudence  and  courage.  That  by  the  wisdom  and 
active  patriotism  of  your  illustrious  Congress  it  may  forever 
flourish  and  increase,  and  that  the  high  mighty  regents  of  these 
free  United  States  may  with  ease  and  in  abundance  enjoy  all 
manner  of  temporal  happiness,  and  at  the  same  time  we  most  ob 
sequiously  recommend  our  city  to  a  perpetual  friendly  intelli 
gence,  and  her  trade  and  navigation  in  matters  reciprocally  ad 
vantageous,  to  your  favor  and  countenance. 

"In  order  to  show  that  such  mutual  commerce  with  the  mer 
chant  houses  of  this  place  may  undoubtedly  be  of  common  bene 
fit,  your  High  Mightinesses  will  be  pleased  to  give  us  leave  to 
mark  out  some  advantages  of  this  trading  city." 

This  extraordinary  missive  then  set  forth  the  advantages 
which  America  might  expect  to  derive  from  trade  with  Ham 
burg,  and  enclosed  a  long  catalogue  of  goods  which  might  be  pur 
chased  there,  some  of  which  were  described  as  "imitating  the 
French,  but  one  third  cheaper,"  or  "nearly  like  the  English,  but 
twenty-nine  per  cent,  cheaper."  This  letter  was  conveyed  to 
Congress  by  the  hand  of  a  prominent  citizen  of  Hamburg,  de 
puted  for  the  purpose;  but  it  had  little  or  no  effect  upon  the 
course  of  American  trade. 

In  the  spring  of  1784  Congress  commissioned  John  Adams, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  Thomas  Jefferson  to  negotiate  treaties 
of  commerce  with  any  nations  which  should  desire  or  be  willing 
to  enter  into  such  conventions.  Obviously,  it  was  preeminently 
desirable  for  this  country  that  it  should  establish  such  relations 
as  widely  as  possible.  But  not  a  single  such  treaty  was  made, 
if  we  except  one  with  the  semi-piratical  power  of  Morocco. 

The  most  important  purely  diplomatic  negotiations  after  the 
making  of  peace  but  still  under  the  Confederation  were  those 
with  Spain.  That  country  had  during  the  war  refused  to  aid 
this  country  or  to  recognize  its  independence,  and  in  the  time  of 
peace-making  it  exerted  all  its  influence  to  our  disadvantage.  It 
was  painfully  divided  between  a  desire  to  see  England  beaten 
and  humiliated  and  a  dread  of  seeing  the  Thirteen  States  suc 
ceed  and  become  a  strong  new  nation,  since  the  latter  achieve 
ment  would  certainly  have  an  unfavorable  influence  upon 
Spain's  remaining  interests  in  the  Western  Hemisphere.  When 


138  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

at  last,  in  spite  of  Spanish  intrigues  and  marplotry,  the  treaty 
of  peace  was  made  and  published,  Spain  found  in  it  much  cause 
for  apprehension  and  for  offense.  Two  features  were  particu 
larly  obnoxious.  One  was  the  disposition  of  the  Yazoo  lands,  to 
which  reference  has  already  been  made.  Spain  claimed  them 
as  her  own,  and  was  not  inclined  to  acquiesce  in  the  treaty's 
disposition  of  them  as  belonging  either  to  England  or  to  the 
United  States.  The  other  was  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
River,  of  which  in  its  lower  reaches  she  claimed  sole  possession. 
France,  it  is  true,  had  accepted  with  only  formal  demur  these 
results  of  Jay 's  astute  and  audacious  diplomacy ;  but  Spain  had 
no  mind  to  do  so,  at  least  without  a  struggle. 

Accordingly  in  the  summer  of  1784,  when  not  only  the  public 
part  of  the  peace  treaty  but  also  its  secret  part  about  the  Yazoo 
lands  had  become  known,  the  Spanish  government  sent  to  Con 
gress  a  formal  notification  that  Spain  would  not  recognize  the 
validity  of  that  instrument,  and  that  if  American  vessels  sought 
to  navigate  that  part  of  the  Mississippi  of  which  Spain  still  pos 
sessed  both  banks,  they  would  be  seized  as  trespassers  and  con 
fiscated.  Nor  was  this  an  idle  or  a  merely  formal  threat.  It  was 
promptly  put  into  effect,  and  an  organized,  vigorous,  and  versa 
tile  campaign  was  begun  by  Spain  against  American  interests 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  She  entered  into  diplomatic  negotia 
tions.  She  strengthened  her  military  forces  along  the  river. 
She  sent  secret  agents  among  the  Indian  tribes,  to  incite  them  to 
hostility  against  settlers  from  the  States.  Above  all,  she  also 
sent  subtle  emissaries  among  the  settlers  on  our  western  frontier, 
to  plant  seeds  of  disaffection,  discontent,  and  secession  among 
them,  and  to  induce  them,  if  possible,  either  to  withdraw  from 
the  United  States  and  to  set  up  an  independent  State  of  their 
own,  or  to  annex  themselves  to  the  Spanish  domain.  Nor  was 
this  last  propaganda  difficult.  Kentucky  was  rapidly  filling  up 
with  colonists,  and  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  was  abso- 
lutey  essential  to  their  prosperity.  In  1785  they  numbered  more 
than  20,000  souls,  and  were  increasing  at  a  rapid  rate. 

Early  in  the  summer  of  1785  the  first  Spanish  minister  came 
to  this  country.  This  was  Don  Diego  de  Gardoqui,  and  he  bore 
a  commission  authorizing  him  to  negotiate  with  the  United  States 
concerning  all  existing  boundary  disputes.  Congress  received 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          139 

him,  and  turned  him  over  to  Jay,  whom  it  had  made  its  secre 
tary  for  foreign  affairs.  Jay  was  probably  the  best-fitted  man 
in  America  for  that  place,  but  the  feebleness  and  indecision  of 
Congress  was  a  heavy  handicap  to  even  a  man  of  his  genius.  In 
consequence,  the  advantage  in  the  controversy  more  than  once 
rested  with  the  Spanish  envoy.  Jay  was  directed  by  Congress 
to  insist  upon  the  provisions  of  the  peace  treaty  concerning  the 
Yazoo  lands,  and  also  upon  the  free  navigation  of  the  whole  of 
the  Mississippi.  Gardoqui  was  equally  insistent  in  denying 
both.  For  months  the  two  disputed  without  result.  Gardoqui 
purposely  protracted  the  discussions,  hoping  thus  to  encourage 
the  development  of  discontent  and  sedition  in  Kentucky.  Early 
in  1786  Jay  reported  to  Congress  that  he  was  still  negotiating 
with  Gardoqui,  but  was  making  little  progress,  and  that  our  right 
to  navigate  the  Mississippi  would  have  to  be  established  "by 
arms,  or  by  treaty. "  Late  in  the  summer  of  that  year  he  de 
spaired  of  effecting  a  settlement,  and  asked  Congress  to  appoint 
a  special  committee  to  advise,  instruct,  and  aid  him.  Spain,  he 
reported,  was  willing  to  make  a  favorable  commercial  treaty  with 
us,  but  was  quite  inflexible  in  refusing  us  the  right  to  navigate 
the  Mississippi.  What,  he  asked,  could  be  done?  We  were  in 
no  condition  for  war  with  Spain,  and  abandonment  of  our  rights 
as  stipulated  in  the  peace  treaty  with  Great  Britain  was  not  to 
be  considered.  The  only  practicable  course,  in  his  view,  was  to 
make  a  treaty  for  a  limited  period,  twenty-five  or  thirty  years, 
under  which  we  should  have  important  commercial  advantages, 
but  under  which,  also,  in  return  for  those  advantages,  we  should 
for  the  time  being  hold  in  abeyance  our  right  to  navigate  the 
river.  This  arrangement  he  frankly  regarded  as  a  temporary 
makeshift,  forced  upon  us  by  our  weak  and  demoralized  condi 
tion,  and  especially  by  our  lack  of  that  efficient  Federal  Gov 
ernment  which  Washington  had  recommended.  In  time,  he 
hoped,  we  should  "become  more  really  and  truly  a  nation,"  and 
then  we  could  assert  and  maintain  our  rights. 

It  was  a  lamentable  thing  to  have  a  statesman  of  Jay's  genius 
forced  into  so  humiliating  an  attitude.  It  was  worse  still  to 
have  Congress  act  as  it  did  over  his  report  and  proposal.  The 
States  were  divided.  New  England  cared  much  for  a  general 
treaty  of  commerce,  but  little  or  nothing  about  the  Mississippi, 


140  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

and  therefore  the  members  from  those  States  favored  Jay 's  coun 
sel  of  despair.  They  voted  solidly  to  instruct  him  to  make  a 
commercial  treaty  and  let  the  Mississippi  go.  The  Southern 
States,  on  the  other  hand,  were  equally  unanimous  and  resolute 
for  insisting  upon  the  immediate  free  use  of  the  river,  and  thus 
for  holding  Jay  to  his  original  instructions.  The  vote  was  by 
States,  each  State  being  a  unit,  according  to  the  Articles  of  Con 
federation.  Twelve  States  were  represented  when  the  vote  was 
taken,  and  of  these  seven  approved  Jay's  proposal.  But  that 
was  not  enough.  Under  the  Articles  of  Confederation  nine 
States  were  necessary  for  the  making  of  a  treaty.  It  would  be 
fruitless,  then,  for  Jay  to  negotiate  a  treaty  on  the  authority  of 
only  seven  States,  when  there  was  no  prospect  of  getting  nine  to 
ratify  it.  Passions  ran  high  in  Congress  over  the  matter.  Pat 
rick  Henry  declared  that  he  would  il  rather  part  with  the  Con 
federation  than  relinquish  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi." 
Madison,  usually  calm  and  philosophic,  was  roused  to  something 
like  anger.  Washington  counseled  patience  and  moderation,  but 
his  voice  was  lost  in  the  tumult. 

Nor  was  that  all.  Treason  began  to  arise  in  the  Southwest. 
A  prominent  citizen  of  Kentucky  was  one  James  Wilkinson,  who 
had  been  an  officer  in  the  revolutionary  army  and  who  subse 
quently  was  for  a  time  the  commanding  officer  of  the  whole 
American  army,  but  who  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  thor 
ough-paced  scoundrels  in  American  history.  If  he  is  not  com 
monly  bracketed  with  Arnold  and  Burr,  of  the  latter  of  whom 
he  was  indeed  a  confederate,  it  is  not  because  such  association 
would  do  him  injustice.  Trickster  and  thief,  he  also  became  a 
traitor.  For  the  sake  of  Spanish  gold  he  secretly  took  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  King  of  Spain,  and  plotted  to  separate  Ken 
tucky  from  the  Confederation  and  annex  it  to  the  Spanish  Em 
pire.  Happily  the  majority  of  Kentuckians  were  too  sane  and 
honest  to  be  corrupted  by  him.  But  unhappily  they  were  so  dis 
gusted  with  the  action  of  Congress  in  even  considering  relin- 
quishment  of  the  Mississippi  that  they  were  on  that  account 
prejudiced  against  the  idea  of  increasing  the  authority  of  the 
central  government.  That  is  to  say,  because  of  their  undoubted 
grievance  they  illogically  opposed  the  only  permanent  cure  for  it 
and  for  similar  grievances.  The  southern  idea  of  state  rights  as 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          141 

opposed  to  federal  sovereignty  had  in  a  large  degree  its  origin  in 
this  dispute  over  the  Mississippi. 

So  the  dispute  dragged  on,  wearily  and  unprofitably.  In  the 
spring  of  1787  Jay  reported  to  Congress  that  the  negotiations 
were  " dilatory,  unpleasant,  and  unpromising,"  and  he  was  be 
coming  convinced  that  nothing  would  come  of  them.  The  only 
thing  to  do,  in  his  opinion,  was  to  hold  in  abeyance  for  a  time 
the  right  to  navigate  the  lower  part  of  the  river,  until  conditions 
changed  in  such  a  way.  as  to  enable  us  to  assert  and  maintain 
that  right.  Of  course,  with  the  rapid  growth  of  the  West  in 
population  and  commerce,  approach  was  being  made  toward 
such  conditions.  The  outcome  of  the  negotiations  was,  in  fact, 
nothing.  They  ended  where  they  began. 

Meantime  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  between  the  Ohio  River  .  i 
and  the  Great  Lakes,  England  was  practically  ignoring  the  treaty 
of  peace.  Under  that  treaty  she  relinquished  that  territory  to 
the  United  States.  But,  in  fact,  she  continued  to  hold  the  fron 
tier  forts,  all  the  way  from  Lake  Champlain  to  Lake  Superior, 
and  thus  exercised  over  the  Indians  an  influence  enormously 
profitable  to  British  trade,  while  settlement  of  those  regions  by 
pioneers-  from  the  States  was  greatly  discouraged  and  impeded. 
To  seek  redress  of  this  grievance  and  fulfilment  of  the  treaty 
stipulations,  as  well  as  for  ordinary  diplomatic  purposes,  the 
first  American  minister  to  England  was  appointed.  This  was 
in  1785.  The  minister  was  John  Adams,  a  singularly  unfor 
tunate  choice.  Able  and  patriotic  as  he  was,  he  had  little  ca 
pacity  for  diplomatic  negotiations;  he  was  impetuous,  irascible, 
impatient,  pugnacious;  and  he  was  strongly  prejudiced  against 
England.  However,  he  was  a  past-master  in  legal  knowledge 
and  acumen,  and  he  could  be  as  resolute  as  the  most  stubborn  op 
ponent. 

His  mission  began,  indeed,  with  promise.  He  was  presented 
to  the  king  in  June,  1785,  and  was  received  as  courteously  as 
though  he  had  been  the  ambassador  of  an  ally  instead  of  a  power 
which  had  lately  rebelled  against  the  king.  His  own  words  in 
addressing  the  king  were  discreet  and  tactful.  He  expressed 
hope  that  he  might  be  instrumental  in  restoring  complete  esteem, 
confidence,  and  affection  between  the  two  countries ;  or,  he  added, 
"the  old  good  nature  and  the  old  good  humor  between  people 


142  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

who,  though  separated  by  an  ocean,  and  under  different  govern 
ments,  have  the  same  language,  a  similar  religion,  and  kindred 
blood."  The  king  was  deeply  affected.  He  protested  that  in 
the  unpleasant  years  of  the  past  he  had  been  animated  by  what 
he  sincerely  regarded  as  his  duty,  and  he  assured  Adams  that  he 
would  eagerly  meet  the  friendly  advances  of  America.  "The 
moment  I  see  such  sentiments  and  language  as  yours  prevail," 
he  said,  "and  a  disposition  to  give  this  country  the  preference, 
that  moment  I  shall  say,  let  the  circumstances  of  language,  re 
ligion,  and  blood  have  their  natural  and  full  effect." 

When,  however,  Adams  began  the  practical  negotiations  for 
which  he  had  been  commissioned,  the  scene  changed  radically 
and  not  for  the  better.  His  aims  were  threefold.  '  One  was  to 
persuade  the  British  government  to  withdraw  its  forces  from 
the  frontier  forts,  in  accordance  with  the  treaty.  The  second 
was,  to  secure  indemnity  for  Great  Britain's  exportation  of 
Negro  slaves  from  America  after  the  making  of  the  treaty  and  in 
violation  of  its  provisions.  The  third  was,  to  make  advantageous 
commercial  relations  between  the  two  countries.  To  all  three, 
the  British  ministry  was  irresponsive.  Moreover,  it  was  dilatory 
and  procrastinating.  It  was  nearly  five  months  after  his  arrival 
in  London  before  he  was  able  to  get  any  answer  whatever  to  his 
representations,  and  then  it  was  most  unsatisfactory.  To  the 
first  and  second  points  the  ministry  gave  an  unequivocal  re 
fusal.  Great  Britain  would  not  relinquish  the  forts  nor  pay  the 
indemnity  until  the  debts  due  to  Englishmen  from  Americans 
were  paid.  Adams  protested  that  the  treaty  contained  no  such 
stipulation.  That  was  quite  true.  But  the  treaty  did  provide 
that  creditors  of  one  country  should  not  be  legally  impeded  in 
the  recovery  of  their  debts  in  the  other  country,  and  it  was 
claimed,  with  only  too  much  truth,  that  in  America  legal  ob 
stacles  were  put  in  the  way  of  British  creditors.  As  for  com 
mercial  relations,  England  ignored  them  because  she  did  not  be 
lieve  that  any  treaty  stipulations  would  be  to  her  profit.  The 
enforcement  of  navigation  laws  would  be  profitable  to  her  mer 
chants,  and  she  was  certain  to  secure  the  major  part  of  America's 
foreign  trade  even  without  a  treaty.  The  result  was  that 
Adams's  mission  utterly  failed.  His  personal  relations  in  Eng 
land  became  less  and  less  pleasant,  until  at  last  they  were  no 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          143 

longer  tolerable.  He  resigned  his  place  in  1788  and  came  home 
in  disgust,  without  making  a  treaty,  and  without  getting  a  single 
one  of  the  objects  for  which  he  had  gone. 

The  secret  of  the  whole  trouble  lay,  of  course,  in  the  weak 
ness  of  our  government,  under  the  Confederation ;  in  the  lack  of 
that  strong  and  efficient  central  authority  which  Washington 
had  recommended.  Congress  had  stipulated  that  no  impedi 
ments  should  be  placed  in  the  way  of  collecting  lawful  debts. 
At  once  individual  States  created  such  impediments  to  a  scandal 
ous  degree,  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  treaty,  and  Congress  was 
quite  unable  to  compel  them  to  respect  and  to  fulfil  the  treaty. 
What  wonder,  then,  that  the  English  government  insisted  that  it 
was  under  no  obligation  to  fulfil  its  obligations  under  the  treaty 
until  America  fulfilled  hers?  Again,  the  States  treated  the  Brit 
ish  loyalists  in  a  most  outrageous  manner,  in  open  violation  of 
the  treaty.  In  later  years,  even  down  to  our  own  times,  it  was 
often  remarked  that  a  considerable  part  of  Canada,  particularly 
inhabitants  of  British  rather  than  of  French  origin,  cherished  a 
peculiar  and  implacable  animosity  against  the  United  States. 
The  reason  was  and  is  obvious.  Such  feelings  were  merely  nat 
ural  and  largely  justifiable  resentment  against  the  injustice  and 
persecution  which  the  United  States  inflicted  upon  British  loyal 
ists.  These  loyalists  sought  refuge  in  Canada,  and  there  nursed 
for  generations  their  wrath  against  their  oppressors  and  despoil- 
ers.  In  this  matter,  too,  Congress  was  powerless  against  the  in 
dividual  States.  As  a  result  of  Jay's  statement  concerning 
American  violations  of  the  treaty,  Madison,  in  a  letter  to 
Jefferson,  urged  that  "the  treaty  should  be  put  in  force  as  a 
law,  and  the  exposition  of  it  left,  like  that  of  other  laws,  to  the 
ordinary  tribunals."  Resolutions  to  that  effect  were  passed  by 
Congress,  and  were  transmitted  to  all  the  States,  accompanied  by 
a  powerful  letter  from  Jay,  urging  the  repeal  of  all  state  laws 
which  conflicted  with  the  treaty.  But  the  States  had  capacious 
waste-paper  baskets,  and  these  documents  were  promptly  con 
signed  to  them.  Congress  had  no  powers  which  the  States  felt 
themselves  required  to  obey  or  to  respect. 

America,  moreover,  was  for  this  same  cause,  the  lack  of  a 
strong  central  government,  quite  unable  to  raise  a  revenue  ade 
quate  to  its  needs.  It  had  no  army  worthy  of  the  name.  It 


144  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

could  not  build  a  navy.  It  could  not  exclude  from  its  ports  the 
shipping  of  any  nation  that  cared  to  send  commerce  hither.  In 
brief,  it  could  not  perform  the  essential  international  functions 
of  a  sovereign  State.  Why  should  other  nations  regard  it  seri 
ously?  Why  should  any  nation  make  a  treaty  with  a  govern 
ment  which  was  confessedly  and  notoriously  unable  to  fulfil 
its  own  treaty  obligations?  That  was  the  miserable  plight  of 
America  at  that  time,  and  that  was  the  light  in  which  Great 
Britain  and  other  European  powers  regarded  it.  British 
statesmen  with  pardonable  scorn  asked  whether  treaties  were  to 
be  made  by  Congress  or  by  the  individual  States,  and  declined 
to  accredit  any  minister  to  a  country  which  had  no  really  respon 
sible  authority  to  receive  him.  They  not  unnaturally  refused, 
also,  to  take  any  steps  toward  fulfilling  their  obligations  to  a 
country  which  would  not  or  could  not  fulfil  its  own.  Jay  him 
self  testified,  with  truth,  that  there  was  not  a  day  on  which  the 
treaty  of  peace  was  not  violated  by  some  of  the  States.  * '  I  sus 
pect,"  he  added,  "that  posterity  will  read  the  history  of  our  last 
four  years  with  much  regret. ' ' 

Our  relations  during  this  humiliating  period  with  certain 
other  powers  must  also  be  noticed.  These  were  the  Mohamme 
dan  States  bordering  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  to  wit,  Turkey, 
Tripoli,  Tunis,  Algiers,  and  Morocco.  The  latter  four  were 
known  as  the  Barbary  States,  and  were  notorious  practicers  of 
piracy,  ravaging  the  commerce  and  even  the  coasts  of  other  na 
tions  almost  at  will.  Before  the  Revolution  a  large  commerce  in 
flour,  fish,  and  other  products  was  enjoyed  by  America  in  Medi 
terranean  ports.  But  as  soon  as  America  became  independent  the 
Barbary  pirates  began  preying  at  will  upon  its  commerce,  seiz 
ing  its  vessels  and  holding  their  crews  captive  for  ransom. 
Various  agents  were  sent  to  remonstrate  and  to  demand  redress, 
but  in  vain.  The  pirates  who  had  long  flouted  all  Europe 
scorned  this  new  power  at  the  further  side  of  the  ocean.  In  Al 
giers  twenty-one  Americans  were  captured  and  enslaved,  and 
nearly  $60,000  was  demanded  for  their  release.  But  America 
had  no  money  to  use  in  redeeming  them,  so  they  had  to  be  left  to 
their  fate ;  though  Congress  did  finally  give  a  small  sum  for  pro 
viding  them  with  food  and  other  necessities  of  life. 

While  Adams  was  in  London  he  had  several  interviews  with 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          145 

the  minister  from  Tripoli,  who  addressed  him  with  much  con 
descension  and  patronage.  The  Tripolitan  conceded  that 
America  might  be  a  great  country,  but  he  pointed  out  that  its 
ships  could  not  navigate  the  Mediterranean  Sea  without  the  per: 
mission  of  the  Barbary  States.  He  was  willing  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  between  the  United  States  and  Tripoli  for  $150,000,  or 
with  all  four  of  the  Barbary  States  for  $600,000.  Adams  was 
presently  joined  by  Jefferson,  who  was  the  American  minister  to 
France,  and  together  they  tried  to  get  better  terms  from  the 
Tripolitan,  but  in  vain.  He  even  demanded  an  addition  of  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  bonus  mentioned,  as  a  personal  bribe  for  him 
self.  The  negotiations  were  fruitless.  With  Morocco,  indeed, 
a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship  was  made  in  1787,  being  ne 
gotiated  by  Thomas  Barclay  and  signed  by  Adams  and  Jeffer 
son  ;  but  the  other  three  powers  continued  to  prey  upon  our  com 
merce  at  will.  The  United  States  was  too  poor  to  pay  tribute, 
and  too  weak  to  fight ;  and  a  settlement  of  scores  with  the  pirates 
of  North  Africa  had  to  be  postponed  until  we  became  a  nation 
with  a  national  government.  And  there  was  a  similar  postpone 
ment  of  all  further  treaty-making  with  all  other  powers. 

To  recapitulate,  it  may  be  observed  that  in  the  few  treaties 
and  the  other  relationships  with  foreign  powers  which  antedated 
the  formation  of  the  Federal  Government  under  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States,  three  major  things  were  achieved,  one 
of  which  was  and  is  good,  while  the  other  two  were  wholly  and 
indefensibly  bad,  and  have  left  a  legacy  of  evil  which  in  some 
measure  troubles  the  nation  to  this  day.  '  The  first  of  these  was\ 
the  adoption,  in  Franklin's  treaty  with  Prussia,  of  a  high  and  / 
advanced  principle  of  neutrality  in  naval  warfare.  It  was  far 
in  advance  of  the  world  at  that  time,  and  indeed  the  world  at 
large  has  not  even  yet  come  up  to  that  standard,  though  it  is 
steadily  making  toward  that  end.  But  what  is  most  to  the  pres 
ent  purpose  is  that  the  adoption  of  that  principle  at  that  time, 
futile  as  it  seemed,  established  a  precedent  which  has  ever  since 
exerted  a  humane  and  beneficent  influence  upon  our  naval  policy. 
The  second  of  these  things  was  our  scandalous  spoliation,  perse 
cution,  and  expulsion  of  all  who  were  even  suspected  of  having 
been  British  sympathizers  during  the  Revolution;  a  crime  com 
pared  with  which  the  British  expulsion  of  the  Acadians  was  a 

VOL.  I — 10 


146  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

trifling  and  negligible  episode.     The  result  was  the  loss  to  this 
country  of  thousands  of  its  most  valuable  citizens,  and  the  en 
gendering  of  resentment  and  estrangement  in  Canada  instead  of 
cordial  and  helpful  friendship _33Phe  third,  also  wholly  and  in 
excusably  bad,  was  the  setting  up  of  state  rights  over  and  above 
..'  the  obligations  of  national  treaties.     In  that  was  set  a  precedent 
/    which  has  plagued  us  more  than  once  since  then,  and  which  is 
the  direct  source  of  one  of  the  most  serious  and  perplexing  of 
our  present  international  controversies. 

These  two  grave  evils  arose  from  the  inherent  weakness  of  the 
Confederation.  And  since  the  Confederation  showed  itself  so 
disastrously  inefficient  in  the  conduct  and  direction  of  foreign  af 
fairs,  it  was  natural  that  the  alert  and  far-seeing  foreign  secre 
tary  should  take  the  lead  in  seeking  a  new  order  of  things  which 
should  give  us  a  government  worthy  of  the  name.  There  was  no 
more  earnest  and  efficient  advocate  of  Washington's  ideal  of  a 
strong  national  government  than  Jay,  especially  when  speaking 
from  the  fulness  of  his  bitter  experience  as  an  ill-treated  diplo 
matic  agent  of  Congress  abroad,  and  as  the  ill-treated  foreign 
secretary  of  that  same  incompetent  body  at  home.  Congress,  he 
complained,  uniformly  refused  to  consult  him  about  the  persons 
to  be  appointed  to  places  in  the  consular  and  diplomatic  services, 
whether  small  or  great.  But  what  better  was  to  be  expected  of 
a  governing  body  which  could  make  war  but  could  not  enlist 
men  or  raise  money  to  carry  it  on;  which  could  make  peace  but 
could  not  enforce  the  terms  of  the  treaty ;  which  could  form  alli 
ances  but  could  not  comply  with  their  obligations;  which  could 
enter  into  commercial  treaties  but  could  not  enforce  them  at 
home  or  abroad;  which  could  borrow  money  but  had  not  the 
means  of  repayment? 

Long  in  advance  of  the  Constitution,  therefore,  and  in  ad 
vance  of  the  assembling  of  the  convention  which  was  to  frame 
that  instrument,  Jay,  in  his  correspondence  with  Jefferson, 
blazed  the  assured  way  to  the  essential  and  fundamental  prin 
ciples  of  the  new  order.  ' '  To  vest  legislative,  judicial  and  execu 
tive  powers  in  one  and  the  same  body,"  he  said,  "and  that,  too, 
in  a  body  daily  changing  its  members,  can  never  be  wise.  In 
my  opinion  those  three  great  departments  of  sovereignty  should 
be  forever  separated,  and  so  distributed  as  to  serve  as  checks  on 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          147 

each  other/'  And  he  added  that  a  degree  of  coercive  power  in 
the  central  government,  to  make  its  decrees  effective,  was  essen 
tial.  "A  mere  government  of  reason  and  persuasion  is  little 
adapted  to  the  actual  state  of  human  nature."  There  spoke  the 
prophet  of  the  Constitution.  Yet  by  a  strange  irony  of  fate — 
or,  shall  we  say,  through  the  crass  ignorance  and  stupid  preju 
dice  of  his  constituents? — Jay  was  not  permitted  to  be  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Constitutional  Convention!  And  he  was  excluded 
from  it  because  of  his  expression  of  these  very  opinions  which 
we  have  recalled.  Just  because  he,  above  most  men,  realized 
the  need  of  a  constitution,  and  pointed  out  what  its  chief  pro 
visions  should  be,  he  was  adjudged  unworthy  or  unsafe  to  have 
a  part  in  making  that  instrument. 

Jay,  however,  was  not  idle  during  the  formative  period  of  the 
Constitution.  He  and  Hamilton  conceived  the  idea  of  writing 
and  publishing  the  remarkable  series  of  papers  on  the  Constitu 
tion  known  as  "The  Federalist,"  intended  to  explain  the  Consti 
tution,  to  vindicate  its  provisions,  and  to  commend  it  to  the  peo 
ple  for  their  ratification.  Jay  meant  himself  to  write  many  of 
the  papers,  but  being  wounded  in  a  riot  in  New  York  he  was  un 
able  to  contribute  more  than  five,  and  the  rest  of  the  work,  or 
most  of  it,  was  done  by  Hamilton  and  Madison.  Jay's  papers 
were  naturally  largely  devoted  to  foreign  affairs.  Indeed,  the 
need  of  the  Constitution  for  the  direction  of  our  foreign  relations 
was  greatly  emphasized.  A  national  government  was  needed,  it 
was  urged,  in  order  to  avert ' '  dangers  from  foreign  force  and  in 
fluence."  It  was  pointed  out  that  the  States  which  bordered 
upon  British  and  Spanish  territory  would  be  most  likely,  under 
the  sway  of  impulse  or  sudden  irritation,  to  plunge  into  war 
with  those  nations,  without  adequate  cause.  Nothing,  said  Jay, 
could  so  effectively  avert  that  danger  as  a  national  government. 
Nor  could  anything  more  surely  command  respect  for  us  abroad. 
Foreign  nations  would  know  our  condition  and  act  accordingly. 
If  we  remained  separate  States  these  would  probably  become 
discordant.  One  would  incline  toward  alliance  with  England, 
another  with  France,  a  third  with  Spain.  They  would  be  played 
off  against  each  other,  and  would  fall  an  easy  prey  to  foreign  in 
vasion  or  encroachment.  But  by  a  united  nation  unreasonable 
causes  of  war  would  be  avoided,  just  causes  would  seldom  be  in- 


148  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

curred.  and  the  safety  of  the  States  would  be  secured  "by  plac 
ing  them  in  a  situation  not  to  invite  hostility."  With  Spain 
shutting  us  away  from  the  lower  Mississippi,  with  Great  Britain 
excluding  us  from  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  with  both  Great  Brit 
ain  and  France  seeking  to  exclude  us  from  the  North  Atlantic 
fisheries  and  from  commerce,  the  possibility  of  war  must  be  con 
sidered.  "War  may  arise;  will  not  union  tend  to  discourage 
it?"  On  the  other  hand,  with  separate  States  making  separate 
and  perhaps  inharmonious  treaties  with  foreign  powers,  would 
not  lack  of  union  encourage  and  provoke  war?  In  this  manner 
considerations  of  foreign  policy  exerted  a  powerful  reflex  influ 
ence  upon  our  domestic  constitution.  We  became  a  nation  at 
home  largely  for  the  sake  of  presenting  a  united  front  to  the  rest 
of  the  world. 

The  second,  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  numbers  of  "The  Federal 
ist  ' '  were  devoted  to  foreign  relations  and  the  services  which  the 
Constitution  would  render  to  the  nation  in  the  conduct  of  affairs 
with  other  nations.  In  the  eleventh  number  the  theme  was 
again  taken  up.  It  was  pointed  out  that  foreign  nations  were 
already  jealous  of  our  commerce,  that  that  commerce  was  de 
pendent  for  protection  upon  a  navy,  and  that  for  the  creation 
and  maintenance  of  a  navy  uniformity  of  action  through  national 
union  was  necessary.  The  forty-second  number  discussed  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution  for  the  regulation  of  our  inter 
course  with  other  nations.  It  was  agreed  that  the  making  of 
treaties,  the  sending  and  receiving  of  ambassadors,  ministers, 
and  consuls,  the  defining  and  punishing  of  offenses  against  inter 
national  law,  and  the  regulation  of  foreign  commerce,  were  ob 
vious  and  essential  functions  of  a  national  government.  This 
fact  was  indeed  recognized  in  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation, 
and  the  Constitution  merely  amplified  the  powers  of  the  Con 
gress,  made  them  effective  for  enforcement,  and  vested  them  in 
specified  departments  of  the  general  government.  In  the  forty- 
fourth  number  the  necessity  of  providing  for  the  enforcement  of 
treaties,  as  part  of  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  was  pointed  out. 

In  the  sixty-fourth  number,  which  was  written  by  Jay,  there 
was  an  elaborate  discussion  of  the  proposal  to  invest  the  Federal 
Senate  with  the  power  of  ratifying  or  rejecting  treaties.  Its 
text  was  the  passage  in  the  Constitution  which  gives  the  Presi- 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          149 

dent  power,  "by  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate,  to  make 
treaties  provided  two  thirds  of  the  Senators  present  concur/' 
It  may  be  that  there  were  some,  even  in  the  convention,  who 
would  have  given  that  power  to  the  President  alone,  without  re 
gard  to  either  branch  of  Congress;  just  as  it  was  thus  enjoyed 
by  the  crown  in  monarchical  countries.  And  indeed  this  was  not 
illogical.  For  if  the  Government  was  to  be  divided  into  three 
separate  and  coordinate  branches — executive,  legislative,  and  ju 
dicial — and  if  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs  was  a  function  of 
the  executive,  there  was  from  one  point  of  view  no  more  reason 
for  legislative  participation  in  treaty-making  than  in  the  render 
ing  of  judicial  opinions.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  many 
who  would  have  had  the  treaty-making  power  retained  by  Con 
gress.  And  this,  too,  from  one  point  of  view,  was  logical.  For 
if  the  treaties  were  to  be  a  part  of  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
they  ought  to  be  made  by  the  law-making  body.  Between  these 
two  views,  the  plan  of  the  Constitution  was  an  adroit  and  con 
vincing  compromise.  It  made  one  branch  of  the  national  legis 
lature  a  participant  in  the  conduct  of  foreign  relations,  and  it 
selected  for  that  purpose  that  branch  which  was  the  smaller  and 
the  more  permanent,  and  which  was  the  better  able  to  consider 
treaties  and  other  foreign  affairs  with  the  secrecy  and  the  expedi 
tion  which  were  often  essential.  In  other  legislation  Congress 
took  the  initiative,  and  the  President  gave  or  withheld  his  ap 
proval.  In  treaty-making  the  President  was  to  take  the  initia 
tive,  and  one  branch  of  Congress  was  to  give  or  withhold  its  ap 
proval.  And  both  classes  of  acts  were  to  be  equally  the  law  of 
the  land. 

In  one  respect,  however,  upon  which  Jay  dwelt  with  masterly 
skill,  there  was  a  radical  difference  between  them.  Laws  of 
Congress  could  be  repealed  or  altered  at  any  time,  by  Congress 
itself.  There  were  those  who  urged  that  treaties  should  be  sub 
ject  to  the  same  treatment.  But  Jay  convincingly  pointed  out 
that  treaties  were  contracts,  made  between  and  by  two  equal 
parties,  "and  consequently,  that  as  the  consent  of  both  was  es 
sential  to  their  formation  at  first,  so  must  it  ever  afterward  be 
to  alter  or  cancel  them."  Again,  he  argued  that  "a  treaty  is 
only  another  name  for  a  bargain,  and  it  would  be  impossible  to 
find  any  nation  who  would  make  any  bargain  with  us,  which 


150  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

should  be  binding  on  them  absolutely,  but  on  us  only  so  long  and 
so  far  as  we  may  think  proper  to  be  bound  by  it."  The  same 
phase  of  the  subject  was  further  considered  by  Hamilton  in  the 
seventy-fifth  number.  He  dwelt  upon  the  importance  and  sanc 
tity  of  contracts  between  nations,  and  the  need  of  the  utmost  cir 
cumspection  in  making  them.  The  power  of  making  them 
seemed  to  belong,  he  said,  neither  to  the  executive  nor  to  the  leg 
islative  branch  of  government,  but  to  a  separate  department; 
but  it  was  practically  fitting  for  it  to  be  exercised  by  a  certain 
conjuncture  of  the  two.  "The  qualities  elsewhere  detailed  as 
indispensable  in  the  management  of  foreign  negotiations,  point 
out  the  executive  as  the  most  fit  agent  in  these  transactions; 
while  the  vast  importance  of  the  trust,  and  the  operation  of 
treaties  as  laws,  plead  strongly  for  the  participation  of  the  whole 
_^or  a  portion  of  the  legislative  body  in  the  office  of  making  them. ' ' 
Finally,  in  the  eightieth  number,  Hamilton  discussed  the  pro 
vision  giving  the  federal  judiciary  authority  in  all  cases  relating 
to  the  intercourse  between  the  United  States  and  foreign  nations. 
The  Union,  he  argued,  would  undoubtedly  be  answerable  to  for 
eign  powers  for  the  conduct  of  its  members;  and  the  responsi 
bility  for  an  injury  ought  ever  to  be  accompanied  with  the  fac 
ulty  of  preventing  it.  A  distinction  might  perhaps  be  imagined 
between  cases  arising  upon  treaties  and  the  laws  of  nations  and 
those  standing  merely  upon  the  footing  of  municipal  law;  the 
former  being  supposed  proper  for  the  federal  and  the  latter  for 
state  jurisdiction.  But  it  was  a  question  whether  an  unjust  sen 
tence  against  a  foreigner,  even  on  a  matter  of  purely  local  law, 
would  not,  if  unredressed,  be  an  aggression  upon  his  sovereign, 
just  as  much  as  one  which  violated  a  treaty  or  international  law. 
Besides,  there  would  be  vast  difficulty  in  discriminating  between 
the  two  classes  of  cases.  Therefore  it  was  by  far  safest  and  most 
expedient  to  refer  all  such  cases  to  the  federal  courts. 

The  Constitution,  then,  dealt  as  follows  with  the  foreign  rela 
tions  and  transactions  of  the  nation:  It  gave  to  Congress,  in 
both  houses,  the  power  to  lay  duties  on  foreign  commerce,  to 
regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  to  define  and  punish 
offenses  against  the  law  of  nations,  to  declare  war,  to  pro 
vide  and  maintain  a  navy,  and  to  provide  for  the  common  de 
fense  and  general  welfare.  It  forbade  any  officer  of  the  United 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          151 

States  to  accept  any  present,  emolument,  office,  or  title  from  any 
foreign  authority,  save  with  the  consent  of  Congress.  It  for 
bade  any  State  of  the  Union  to  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance, 
confederation,  agreement,  or  compact  with  any  foreign  power, 
save  with  the  consent  of  Congress.  It  gave  to  the  President  the 
power,  by  and  with  the  advice  of  the  Senate,  to  make  treaties 
and  appoint  ambassadors,  ministers,  and  consuls,  and  to  receive 
ambassadors  and  other  public  ministers.  It  gave  to  the  federal 
courts  of  the  United  States  jurisdiction  in  all  cases  arising  under 
treaties;  in  all  cases  affecting  ambassadors,  ministers,  and  con 
suls,  and  in  all  cases  between  States  or  their  citizens  and  foreign 
States  or  their  citizens  or  subjects;  but  in  the  Eleventh  Amend 
ment,  which  went  into  effect  nine  years  later,  it  was  provided 
that  the  judicial  power  should  not  be  extended  to  any  suit 
against  one  of  the  States  by  citizens  or  subjects  of  any  foreign 
State,  the  result  being  to  debar  uk  bringing  of  such  suits. 
t>  In  such  fashion  the  makers  of  tthe  Constitution  purposed  to 
remedy  the  defects  of  the  old  Confederation  so  far  as  the  con 
duct  of  foreign  affairs  was  concerned.  The  plan  had  twofold 
merits.  /  In  the  first  place  it  provided  for  a  suitable  and  logical 
distribution  and  vesting  of  powers  over  foreign  affairs  among 
and  in  the  three  great  departments  of  government  which  Jay 
had  suggested,  x  In  the  second  and  still  more  important  place, 
it  provided  for  a  responsible  and  efficient  central  government 
such  as  Washington  had  recommended,  which  could  present  the 
nation  with  an  undivided  front  to  the  outside  world,  which  could 
enforce  treaties  as  well  as  make  them,  and  which  could  cause 
other  powers  to  realize  that  in  America  they  were  at  least  deal 
ing  with  a  responsible  and  authoritative  sovereign  nation. 

The  Constitution  was  duly  adopted,  and  in  1789  a  new  Na--« 
tional  Government  was  established  upon  its  basis.  One  of  the 
earliest  acts  of  that  Government  was  to  organize  an  efficient  de 
partment  of  foreign  affairs,  to  complete  the  unfinished  business 
of  the  old  Congress,  and  to  undertake  those  new  negotiations 
which  were  hoped  for  and  which  were  indeed  essential  to  the 
progress  of  the  nation.  The  old  Congress  of  the  Confederation, 
as  one  of  its  last  acts,  in  September,  1788,  had  voted  "that  no 
further  progress  be  made  in  the  negotiations  with  Spain,  but 
that  the  subjects  to  which  they  relate  be  referred  to  the  Federal 


152  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Government  which  is  to  assemble  in  March  next. ' '  There  were 
other  matters  of  unfinished  business  awaiting  execution,  and 
then  there  were  further  efforts  to  be  made  to  negotiate  with  for 
eign  powers  the  treaties  which  for  the  last  four  years  had  been 
sought  and  solicited  in  vain.  So  the  twenty-eighth  statute  en 
acted  by  Congress,  which  was  approved  on  July  27,  1789,  pro 
vided  for  the  establishment  of  an  executive  department,  under 
the  President,  to  be  known  as  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
its  principal  officer  to  be  known  as  the  Secretary  for  the  Depart 
ment  of  Foreign  Affairs.  That  secretary  was  to  perform  and 
execute  such  duties  as  might  be  assigned  to  him  by  the  President 
relative  to  correspondence,  commissions,  or  instructions  to  or 
with  public  ministers  or  consuls  from  the  United  States,  or  with 
ministers  or  consuls  from  foreign  States;  or  to  memorials  or 
other  applications  from  foreign  public  ministers  or  other  for 
eigners;  or  to  such  other  matters  respecting  foreign  affairs  as 
the  President  might  assign  to  him.  A  little  later  this  was 
amended  by  Statute  No.  68,  approved  on  September  15,  1789, 
so  as  to  change  the  name  of  the  department  to  "  Department  of 
State"  and  the  title  of  its  chief  officer  to  " Secretary  of  State." 
f  This  was  an  unfortunate  and  misleading  change.  It  was  made 
/  because  Congress  wanted  this  secretary  to  have  charge  of  the 
correspondence  between  the  President  and  the  governors  of  the 
various  States  of  the  Union.  That  was  a  duty  which  should  have 
been  assigned  to  a  secretary  of  the  interior,  but  Congress  was 
at  that  time  unwilling  to  create  another  department.  But  that 
early  law,  of  1789,  still  stands  as  the  organic  law  of  the  state 
department,  which  is  in  fact  if  not  in  name  the  department  of 
foreign  affairs. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  conceive  circumstances  at  once  more 
embarrassing  and  more  momentous  than  those  which  surrounded 
the  new  Government  at  the  time  of  its  establishment  in  the 
spring  of  1789,  and  of  these  untoward  circumstances  some  of 
the  worst  were  in  the  foreign  relations  of  America,  j  We  had 
literally  not  a  friend  in  the  world.  There  was  probably  "nbY  a 
nation  that  had  confidence  in  the  stability  or  the  success  of  the 
republic.  It  is  not  certain  that  there  was  one  that  wished  us 
well.  Whatever  little  sympathy  and  favorable  expectation  had 
been  excited  by  our  struggles  in  the  Revolution  had  been  for- 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          153 

felted  and  lost  by  the  miserable  ineptitude  of  the  Confederation. 
We  were  as  bankrupt  in  reputation  abroad  as  we  were  in  pecuni 
ary  fortune  at  home.  And  to  extricate  us  from  that  deplorable 
plight  and  to  give  us  an  assured  and  honorable  place  among  the 
nations,  an  untried  system  had  been  adopted  and  an  unprece 
dented  experiment  was  to  be  made.  All  that  had  gone  before, 
save  perhaps  the  single  principle  of  neutrality  to  which  reference 
has  already  been  made,  was  eliminated  and  abolished.  Our  alli 
ance  with  France  was  practically  as  much  a  thing  of  the  past  as 
was  our  war  with  England.  We  had  to  begin  de  novo  the  culti 
vation  of  foreign  relationships  with  all  nations  of  the  world. 

Three  salient  features  of  that  situation  must  be  recalled  for  a 
proper  understanding  of  the  task  which  confronted  our  first  ad 
ministration.  I  One  was  the  troublous  condition  of  European 
affairs.  France  was  on  the  verge  of  her  colossal  revolution, 
which  was  destined  to  transform  all  Europe.  Washington  was 
inaugurated  president  on  April  30,  and  five  days  later  the  States 
General  of  France  assembled  at  Versailles  and  began  the  Revo 
lution.  Spain  was  rapidly  declining  toward  utter  impotence 
and  civil  chaos.  Great  Britain  was  undergoing  a  profound 
transformation  suggested  by  our  own  revolt  against  arbitrary 
power.  And  these  three  powers  came  into  very  direct  contact 
with  us,  so  that  it  was  certain  that  in  their  conflicts  we  should 
be  in  danger  of  being  involved. 

The  second  feature  of  the  case  was  that  the  American  people 
had  ever  been  accustomed  to  take  their  politics,  at  any  rate  their 
foreign  politics,  from  Europe,  and  they  were  unprepared  to  do 
otherwise.  They  instinctively  continued  to  look  to  England 
and  France  for  diplomatic  cues,  and  it  was  a  difficult  task  to 
teach  them  to  have  regard  for  a  system  of  their  own  and  for  a 
foreign  policy  based  on  the  interests  of  America  and  not  on  those 
of  Europe.  A  few  Americans  did  indeed  appreciate  the  need 
of  so  domg,  chief  among  them  Washington  himself.  Writing, 
before  his  election  as  president,  to  Sir  Edward  Newenham,  lie 
said:  "I  hope  the  United  States  of  America  will  be  able  to  \ 
keep  disengaged  from  the  labyrinth  of  European  politics  and  y 
wars ;  and  that  before  long  they  will,  by  the  adoption  of  a  good 
National  Government,  have  become  respectable  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world,  so  that  none  of  the  maritime  powers,  especially  none 


154  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  those  who  hold  possessions  in  the  New  World  or  the  West 
Indies,  shall  presume  to  treat  them  with  insult  or  contempt.  It 
should  be  the  policy  of  the  United  States  to  administer  to  their 
wants  without  being  engaged  in  their  quarrels."  There  could  be 
no  sounder  or  wiser  statesmanship  than  that.  But  the  very  fact 
that  Washington  deemed  it  necessary  to  write  thus  shows  how 
far  the  country  then  was  from  realizing  his  ideal.  He  was  con 
vinced  that  one  of  the  most  important  duties,  perhaps  the  most 
important  of  all,  for  developing  us  into  a  true  nation,  was  the 
breaking  of  all  political  bonds  with  Europe.  To  the  perform 
ance  of  that  duty  he  addressed  himself.  But  it  was  his  mis 
fortune  to  be  compelled  to  do  so  at  the  very  time  when  the  great 
est  civil  storm  the  world  had  known  for  ages  was  beginning  to 
break  in  fury,  and  when  in  spite  of  itself  this  country  was  caught 
at  least  in  the  outskirts  of  the  vast  disturbance. 

The  third  element  of  the  case,  and  perhaps  the  worst  of  all, 
was  the  rise  of  faction  in  the  United  States,  and  the  injection 
of  it  into  our  foreign  relations.  During  the  Revolution  party 
feelings  had  been  held  in  abeyance.  Massachusetts  and  Vir 
ginia,  Puritan  and  Cavalier,  worked  and  fought  the  common  foe 
in  harmony.  But  with  the  coming  of  peace  faction  began  to 
manifest  itself,  and  in  the  constitutional  convention  it  expanded 
to  vast  proportions  and  displayed  an  ominous  malignity.  Pri 
marily,  the  schism  occurred  over  the  question  of  the  Central 
'Government.  Some  favored  a  strong  Federal  Government  and 
a  Union  of  the  States  in  an  indivisible  nation.  Others  would 
have  perpetuated  the  mere  league  of  independent  States  which 
existed  under  the  Confederation.  So  the  Federalists  and  Anti- 
Federalists  arose.  That  would  have  been  bad  enough  had  the 
party  differences  been  confined,  as  party  differences  always 
should  be,  to  purely  domestic  affairs.  But  unfortunately  they 
were  not  thus  confined.  The  two  parties  soon  differed  as  much 
in  external  policy  as  in  internal  policy.  Domestic  differences 
caused  the  young  republic  to  present  too  often  a  divided  front  to 
the  outside  world,  and  because  of  such  differences  American 
statesmen  allied  themselves  with  foreign  powers  against  their 
own  countrymen. 

In  these  circumstances  the  salvation  of  the  country  depended 
upon  the  statesmanship  of  Washington,  no  less  than  years  be- 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          155 

fore  it  had  depended  upon  his  military  genius;  and  he  worked 
out  its  salvation  in  an  extraordinary  manner.  There  fell  to  him 
at  once  the  responsibility  of  appointing  a  secretary  of  state, 
who  should  under  his  directions  conduct  the  foreign  affairs  of 
the  nation.  Probably  the  fittest  choice  for  that  place  would 
have  been  John  Jay,  whose  superb  diplomacy  had  been  the  re 
deeming  feature  of  our  otherwise  too  often  ignoble  foreign  rela 
tions  under  the  Confederation.  But  Jay,  with  his  spotless 
integrity  and  great  legal  ability,  was  needed  at  the  head  of  the 
federal  judiciary  as  our  first  chief  justice.  Adams  was  vice- 
president  and  therefore  debarred  from  the  secretaryship. 
Franklin  was  too  old  for  further  service.  Next  to  these  in 
prominence,  in  both  domestic  and  foreign  affairs,  was  Jefferson, 
and  upon  him  the  choice  fell.  It  was  an  extraordinary  choice 
from  every  point  of  view  save  that  of  purely  public  policy. 
There  had  been  no  personal  friendship  between  Washington  and 
Jefferson.  They  knew  each  other  only  slightly,  and  neither  liked 
the  other.  In  all  of  Washington's  correspondence  before  this 
time  there  had  occurred  only  a  single  mention  of  Jefferson,  and 
that  by  no  means  favorable.  Writing  to  Robert  Livingston  in 
January,  1783,  before  the  conclusion  of  peace  with  Great  Brit 
ain,  and  referring  to  the  negotiations,  Washington  said:  ''What 
office  is  Mr.  Jefferson  appointed  to  that  he  has,  you  say,  lately 
accepted?  If  it  is  that  of  commissioner  of  peace,  I  hope  he  will 
arrive  too  late  to  have  any  hand  in  it."  When  we  remember 
how  little  Washington  was  ever  given  to  criticizing  other  men 
in  his  letters,  this  passage  must  be  regarded  as  a  striking  revela 
tion  of  his  distrust  of  Jefferson  and  his  antipathy  toward  him. 
It  is  indeed  difficult  to  imagine  two  men  more  radically  unlike, 
save  in  one  respect,  than  these  two:  in  natural  disposition,  in 
habitual  manner,  and  in  views  of  public  policy.  Washington 
"was  a  natural  fighter,  strong,  direct,  masculine ;  while  Jefferson 
was  a  noncombatant,  adroit,  subtle,  and  feminine.  The  one  was 
deliberate  and  conservative,  the  other  impulsive  and  radical. 
The  one  judged  policies  by  their  demonstrated  merits,  the  other 
eagerly  embraced  anything  that  was  new  just  for  the  sake  of  its 
novelty.  The  one  was  constant  and  consistent,  the  other  fickle 
and  inconsistent.  Yet  in  the  one  after  all  supreme  respect  of 
devotion  to  America  and  its  interests,  as  they  saw  them  from 


156  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

their  diametrically  opposite  points  of  view,  the  two  were  in  exact 
accord. 

We  must  conclude,  then,  that  Washington  selected  Jefferson 
for  the  secretaryship  of  state  against  his  own  personal  inclina 
tions,  but  on  the  ground  of  public  welfare.  He  recognized  Jef 
ferson's  ability,  his  integrity,  his  patriotism,  and  his  consider 
able  experience  in  diplomacy;  for  Jefferson  was  then  and  had 
been  for  some  time  the  American  minister  to  France.  He  recog 
nized  the  fact,  too,  that  Jefferson  had  a  very  large  personal  fol 
lowing  in  this  country  and  commanded  the  confidence  and  affec 
tion  of  the  people  to  an  exceptional  degree.  True,  Jefferson 
was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  political  party  opposed  to  that  with 
which  Washington  himself  was  affiliated.  But  was  it  not  for 
that  very  reason  good  policy  to  put  him  into  the  cabinet,  so  that 
the  new  Government  might  be  representative  of  both  parties? 
And  at  the  worst,  if  Jefferson  should  be  inclined  to  exhibit  fac 
tional  animosity  toward  Washington,  it  might  be  better  to  have 
him  in  the  cabinet,  where  his  doings  could  be  constantly  ob 
served,  than  to  leave  him  a  free  lance  outside. 

There  was,  indeed,  some  danger  that  Jefferson  would  cause 
trouble  in  our  foreign  relations,  because  he  was  of  all  men  most 
inclined  to  meddle  in  the  affairs  of  other  lands  and  to  shape 
American  policies  according  to  alien  likes  and  dislikes;  and  this 
in  spite  of  his  subsequent  exhortation  to  avoid  entangling  alli 
ances.  Thus  in  1786  he  spent  a  few  weeks  in  London,  cooperat 
ing  with  Adams,  and  his  brief  experience  and  observation  filled 
him  with  a  passionate  and  unreasoning  distrust  and  hatred  of 
England,  which  lasted  for  many  years.  "That  nation,"  he 
wrote,  "  hates  us,  their  ministers  hate  us,  and  their  king  more 
than  all  other  men.  .  .  .  Their  hostility  toward  us  is  much  more 
deeply  rooted  at  present  than  during  the  war.  In  spite  of  trea 
ties,  England  is  still  our  enemy.  Her  hatred  is  deep  rooted  and 
cordial  and  nothing  is  wanting  with  her  but  the  power  to  wipe 
us  and  the  land  we  live  in  out  of  existence."  The  English  "do 
not  conceive  that  any  circumstances  will  arise  which  shall  render 
it  expedient  for  them  to  have  any  political  connection  with  us. 
There  is  no  party  in  our  favor  here,  either  in  power  or  out  of 
power.  .  .  .  The  spirit  of  hostility  to  us  has  always  existed  in 
the  mind  of  the  king,  but  it  has  now  extended  itself  through  the 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          157 

whole  mass  of  the  people."  Nor  were  his  feelings  toward  Eng 
land  different  from,  those  which  he  believed  England  cherished 
toward  us.  "I  had  never  concealed,"  he  said,  "that  I  consid 
ered  the  British  as  our  natural  enemies  and  as  the  only  nation 
on  earth  who  wished  us  ill  from  the  bottom  of  their  souls. ' '  He 
even  suggested  that  the  English  were  capable  of  aiding  the  pi 
rates  of  Algiers  in  preying  upon  our  commerce.  He  explicitly 
accused  England  of  being  responsible  for  the  coolness  of  the  rest 
of  Europe  toward  us.  "There  was,"  he  said,  "an  enthusiasm 
toward  us  all  over  Europe  at  the  moment  of  the  peace.  The  tor 
rent  of  lies  published  unremittingly  in  every  day's  London 
papers  first  made  an  impression  and  produced  a  coolness.  The 
republication  of  these  lies  in  most  of  the  papers  of  Europe  car 
ried  them  home  to  the  belief  of  every  mind."  The  wretched 
credit  of  the  United  States  abroad  he  attributed  partly  to  the 
real  deficiencies  of  the  country  but  partly  also  ' '  to  the  lies  propa 
gated  by  the  London  papers,  which  are  probably  paid  for  by  the 
ministers  to  reconcile  the  people  to  the  loss  of  us. ' ' 

These  expressions  we  must  consider  as  little  better  than  fantas 
tic.  There  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  such  incessant  campaign 
against  America  in  the  English  press;  while  if  there  were 
sharper  criticism  of  this  country  then  than  there  had  been  be 
fore  and  during  the  war,  that  circumstance  was  quite  natural. 
Any  nation  feels,  of  course,  more  free  to  criticize  and  condemn 
another  independent  and  alien  country  than  a  part  of  its  own 
empire,  even  though  the  latter  be  rebellious.  It  would  have  been 
extraordinary  if  British  criticisms  had  not,  therefore,  increased 
after  the  recognition  of  our  independence.  That  there  had  been 
any  general  enthusiasm  toward  us  all  over  Europe  was  certainly 
untrue.  There  was  little  in  France,  none  in  Spain,  none  in 
Russia,  none  in  Austria.  In  Holland,  in  Sweden,  and  in  Prussia 
there  was  an  inclination  toward  friendly  relations  with  us,  but 
to  call  it  enthusiasm  involves  gross  exaggeration.  Moreover,  if 
there  had  been  any  such  feeling,  British  hostility  could  scarcely 
have  affected  it.  Great  Britain  was  openly  hostile  toward  France. 
Spain,  and  Holland,  and  was  on  bad  terms  with  Prussia,  while 
she  had  not  one  close  and  confidential  friend  in  all  Europe.  In 
such  circumstances  to  say  that  all  Europe  took  its  cues  from 
England,  and  turned  against  America  because  of  English  rail- 


158  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ings  against  us,  was  simply  preposterous.  If  Jefferson  had  pos 
sessed  even  a  rudimentary  sense  of  humor,  he  would  never  have 
made  the  statement. 

From  London,  Jefferson  had  gone  to  Paris,  where  he  became 
as  much  enamored  of  France  as  he  was  embittered  against  Eng 
land.  The  wildest  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution  won  his 
enthusiastic  admiration,  and  he  wished  to  see  some  of  its  spirit 
transplanted  to  America.  "A  little  rebellion,"  he  wrote,  re 
ferring  to  Shays 's  Rebellion  in  Massachusetts,  "now  and  then,  is 
a  good  thing.  An  observation  of  this  truth  should  render  honest 
republican  governors  so  mild  in  their  punishment  of  rebellions 
as  not  to  discourage  them  too  much.  .  .  .  God  forbid  we  should 
ever  be  twenty  years  without  such  a  rebellion.  .  .  .  The  tree 
of  liberty  must  be  refreshed  from  time  to  time  with  the  blood 
of  patriots  and  tyrants  It  is  its  natural  manure. ' '  And  again, 
"I  am  convinced/'  he  said,  ''that  those  societies  (as  the  Indians) 
which  live  without  government  enjoy  in  their  general  mass  an 
infinitely  greater  degree  of  happiness  than  those  who  live  under 
European  governments. ' ' 

Certainly  these  were  strange  and  by  no  means  auspicious 
views  to  be  held  by  the  secretary  of  state  who  was  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  our  foreign  policies  and  was  to  conduct  our  for 
eign  negotiations  and  relationships  during  the  critical  years  of 
national  infancy.  If  we  pass  over  the  astonishing  sentiments  in 
favor  of  occasional  rebellions  and  against  government  of  any 
kind,  we  must  regard  his  intense  partiality  in  his  attitude  toward 
European  nations  as  most  unfortunate;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact 
it  entailed  upon  the  young  nation  most  unfortunate  results. 
Beyond  doubt,  the  true  and  wise  attitude  of  one  nation  toward 
another  is  that  which  was  expressed  by  Washington,  when  he 
said  that  "Nothing  is  more  essential  than  that  permanent,  in 
veterate  antipathies  against  particular  nations  and  passionate 
attachments  for  others  should  be  excluded ;  and  that  in  place  of 
them,  just  and  amicable  feelings  toward  all  should  be  cultivated. 
The  nation  which  indulges  toward  another  an  habitual  hatred  or 
an  habitual  fondness,  is  in  some  degree  a  slave.  It  is  a  slave  to 
its  animosity  or  to  its  affection,  either  of  which  is  sufficient  to 
lead  it  astray  from  its  duty  and  its  interest."  This  was  the 
counsel  of  Washington  to  the  whole  people.  It  was  and  is  obvi- 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          159 

ously  still  more  pertinent  and  important  to  those  officers  of  Gov 
ernment  who  have  in  hand  the  shaping  of  our  foreign  relations 
and  the  conduct  of  foreign  transactions.  And  most  of  all  was  it 
pertinent  and  important  to  such  officers  in  the  first  years  of  our 
national  life,  when  we  were  just  being  introduced  into  the  soci 
ety  of  nations  and  were  laying  for  all  time  the  foundations  of 
our  foreign  policy  and  our  international  relationships. 

Jefferson  had,  however,  two  commanding  principles  of  fitness 
for  the  task  upon  which  he  was  entering.  /  One  was  a  passionate 
love  for  his  own  country  and  a  devotion  to  its  interests  which 
surpassed  every  other  consideration.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this 
love  was  the  cause  of  his  hatred  of  England  and  his  affection  for 
France.  For,  less  than  a  score  of  years  afterward,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  he  exactly  reversed  himself,  and  gave  to  England 
his  confidence  and  friendship,  while  he  regarded  the  once  beloved 
France  as  our  deadliest  foe.  In  his  loves  and  hates,  and  all  his 
astounding  changes  and  inconsistencies,  he  was  supremely  ani 
mated  by  a  passion  of  patriotism.  /  The  other  principle  was  his 
belief  in  an  undivided  and  indivisible  nationality  in  our  foreign 
affairs.  He  did  not  believe  in  a  nation.  Federalism  was  ab 
horrent  to  him.  The  powers  given  to  the  general  Government 
by  the  Constitution  seemed  to  him  too  great.  He  would  have 
had  the  States  remain  separate  and  independent  of  each  other. 
But  still  he  wanted  them  to  present  a  united  front  to  the  rest 
of  the  world.  "My  general  plan,"  he  said,  "would  be  to  make 
the  States  one  as  to  everything  connected  with  foreign  nations, 
and  several  as  to  everything  purely  domestic. ' ' 

Jefferson  was  not  permitted,  however,  to  organize  the  state 
department  and  to  open  our  intercourse  with  foreign  nations  en 
tirely  according  to  his  own  will.  He  was  still  in  France,  as  our 
minister,  when  the  first  Government  was  formed  under  the  Con 
stitution.  Washington  was  inaugurated  on  April  30.  It  was 
not  until  the  following  December  that  Jefferson  returned  to  this 
country,  and  it  was  not  until  the  latter  part  of  March  in  the 
next  year  that  he  entered  upon  his  duties  as  secretary  of  state. 
For  those  nearly  eleven  months,  John  Jay  remained  in  charge 
of  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  Government,  and  in  that  time  he 
was  able  to  put  upon  them  a  degree  of  his  own  impress.  But 
there  were  two  other  still  more  potent  forces  at  work.  /One  of 


160  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

these  was  Alexander  Hamilton,  who  was  secretary  of  the  treas 
ury,  and  who  was  on  the  closest  possible  terms  of  confidence 
and  influence  with  the  President.  Indeed,  he  was  always  far 
more  influential  with  the  President  than  Jefferson,  even  in  mat 
ters  relating  to  Jefferson's  own  department.  And  Hamilton 
was  in  many  respects  the  very  antithesis  of  Jefferson.  He  in 
clined  toward  friendship  with  England  rather  than  with  France. 
But  he  had  none  of  the  passionate  loves  and  hates  for  any  for 
eign  powers  which  Jefferson  had,  or  appeared  to  have.  He  was 
calm,  impartial,  and  moved  by  reason  rather  than  impulse.  He 
was,  moreover,  the  advocate  of  two  principles  of  supreme  impor 
tance  in  our  foreign  relations  which  in  after  years  became  tri 
umphant  and  which  are  among  the  most  marked  characteristics 
of  our  record.,  One  was,  that  the  United  States,  as  an  indivisible 
nation,  should  expand  until  it  occupied  or  at  least  dominated 
the  whole  North  American  continent,  and  exercised  the  hegem- 
'ony  of  the  Western  Hemisphere.  To  this  policy  Jefferson  him 
self  was  forced  by  the  logic  of  events  in  after  years  to  become  a 
convert,  and  much  of  his  greatest  fame  rests  upon  his  practical 
application  of  Hamilton's  ideas. ,  Hamilton's  other  great  prin 
ciple  was  that  of  the  substitution  of  arbitration  and  international 
adjudication  for  war  as  a  means  of  composing  differences  be 
tween  nations;  a  principle  with  which  this  country  has  long 
been  conspicuously  and  honorably  identified.  Through  the  im 
mense  importance  of  the  treasury  department,  and  through  his 
personal  influence  with  the  President,  Hamilton  was  able  to  im 
press  these  and  others  of  his  principles  upon  our  state  depart 
ment  at  the  beginning  of  its  career. 

But  the  dominant  factor  in  the  whole  situation  was,  after  all, 
Washington  himself;  and  in  no  department  of  the  Government 
did  he  more  inexorably  exert  his  mastery  than  in  that  of  foreign 
affairs.  It  may  have  been  because  of  that  distrust  of  Jefferson 
which  we  have  already  recalled,  or  for  some  other  reason.  The 
fact  is  that  he  was  in  a  notable  degree  his  own  secretary  for  for 
eign  affairs.  In  several  instances  negotiations  which  usually 
would  have  been  conducted  by  the  secretary  were  conducted  by 
Washington  himself,  and  he  never  hesitated  to  overrule  the  sec 
retary  when  that  officer's  word  did  not  command  his  approval. 
Before  he  was  chosen  president  he  had  expressed  the  hope,  which 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          161 

we  have  quoted,  that  the  United  States  would  be  able  to  keep 
itself  entirely  detached  from  the  politics  and  the  wars  of  Europe, 
and  to  the  attainment  of  that  end  he  addressed  himself  perhaps 
more  vigilantly  and  energetically  than  to  any  other  of  his  mul 
tifarious  and  arduous  labors.  His  first  great  task  on  entering 
office  was  personally  to  examine,  reading  page  by  page,  line  by 
line,  word  by  word,  the  entire  record  of  the  foreign  transactions 
of  the  Confederation,  in  order  to  inform  himself  of  the  exact 
status  of  this  country  toward  its  neighbors ;  and  as  he  did  so  he 
made  copious  notes,  for  further  inquiry  and  consideration,  and 
for  guidance  in  the  settling  up  of  the  vast  and  intricate  mass  of 
unfinished  business  which  the  Confederation  had  left  to  the  new 
Government. 

Nor  must  we  underrate  the  statesmanship  of  Washington  or 
his  extraordinary  judgement  in  seeing  and  understanding  the 
great  movements  of  the  world.  Talleyrand  said  of  Hamilton, 
not  extravagantly,  that  he  "divined  Europe."  Jefferson,  Ad 
ams,  Jay,  Morris,  and  others  had  spent  much  time  abroad  and 
had  studied  Europe  on  the  spot.  But  Washington,  who  had 
never  crossed  the  sea,  and  who  had  spent  most  of  his  career  with 
the  army,  immersed  in  military  problems,  had  a  vision  of  the 
world  more  keen,  more  comprehensive,  and  more  luminous  than 
any  of  them.  Note  what  he  wrote  in  October,  1789,  in  the  first 
year  of  his  administration,  about  the  French  Revolution,  which 
was  then  in  its  early  stages.  "If  it  ends,"  he  said,  "as  our  best 
accounts  predict,  that  nation  will  be  the  most  powerful  and 
happy  in  Europe ;  but  I  fear,  though  it  has  gone  triumphantly 
through  the  first  paroxysm,  it  is  not  the  last  it  has  to  encounter 
before  matters  are  finally  settled.  In  a  word,  the  revolution  is 
of  too  great  magnitude  to  be  effected  in  so  short  space,  and  with 
the  loss  of  so  little  blood.  ...  To  forbear  running  from  one  ex 
treme  to  another  is  no  easy  matter;  and  should  this  be  the  case, 
rocks  and  shelves,  not  visible  at  present,  may  wreck  the  vessel, 
and  give  a  higher-toned  despotism  than  the  one  which  existed 
before." 

Fortunate  indeed  was  it  for  the  young  republic  that  its  chief 
magistrate  was  a  statesman  of  such  serenity  and  genius  of  vision. 
For  the  inept  diplomacy  of  the  Confederation  had  left  a  legacy 
of  actual  embarrassment  and  of  potential  disaster;  the  gravest 

VOL.  I — 11 


162  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

problems  which  can  confront  any  nation  in  its  foreign  relation 
ships  were  just  before  us  demanding  a  solution  big  with  the  fate 
of  America ;  and  the  whole  civilized  world  was  at  the  very  verge 
of  the  most  tremendous  cataclysm  it  had  known  for  centuries. 
Never  was  a  new  State  inducted  into  the  fellowship  of  nations 
under  more  hazardous  and  trying  circumstances.  Never  was 
one  controlled  at  such  a  conjuncture  by  a  spirit  of  greater  in 
tegrity,  of  greater  prudence,  or  of  greater  resolution. 

Early  in  our  constitutional  history  a  number  of  important 
principles  concerning  diplomatic  intercourse  with  other  nations 
were  established.  ?0ne,  proceeding  directly  from  the  Constitu 
tion,  was  that  the  executive  department  of  the  Government  was 
the  sole  source  of  diplomatic  authority.  At  first,  it  is  true,  the 
President  met  with  the  Senate  and  discussed  with  it,  face  to  face, 
the  proposed  terms  of  treaties  which  were  to  be  negotiated;  but 
that  practice  was  soon  discontinued  and  it  was  recognized  to  be 
the  prerogative  of  the  President  to  negotiate  treaties,  perhaps  in 
secret,  and  not  to  lay  them  before  the  Senate  for  its  ' '  advice  and 
consent,"  until  they  were  completed  and  signed.  It  was  simi 
larly  recognized  that  he  should  in  like  manner  appoint  all  am 
bassadors,  ministers,  and  consuls,  of  any  rank. 
/  Another  principle  was  that  foreign  ministers  must  recognize 
the  secretary  of  state  as  the  sole  organ  of  the  executive.  John 
Adams  blazed  the  way  to  this  in  1788,  when  he  wrote  in  a  letter 
to  Jay:  " There  is  no  maxim  more  clearly  settled  in  all  courts, 
and  in  all  negotiations  between  nations,  than  that  sovereign 
should  always  speak  to  sovereign  and  minister  to  minister." 
One  of  the  first  acts  of  "Washington  on  becoming  President  in 
1789  was  to  remind  the  French  minister,  the  Count  de  Moustier, 
of  that  salutary  principle,  and  to  insist  upon  its  observance.  A 
little  later  Jefferson,  as  secretary  of  state,  laid  down  the  rule  for 
all  time:  "He  (the  President)  being  the  only  channel  of  com 
munication  between  the  country  and  foreign  nations,  it  is  from 
him  alone  that  foreign  nations  or  their  agents  are  to  learn  what 
is  or  has  been  the  will  of  the  nation,  and  whatever  he  communi 
cates  as  such  they  have  a  right  and  are  bound  to  consider  as 
the  expression  of  the  nation;  and  no  foreign  nation  can  be  al 
lowed  to  question  it;  (or)  to  interpose  between  him  and  any 
branch  of  Government." 


CONFEDERATION  AND  CONSTITUTION          163 
^*2 

A  third  principle  was  that  the  withdrawal  or  renewal  of  min 
isters  and  missions  was  to  be  determined  by  executive  discretion. 
It  will  be  recalled  that  John  Adams  was  sent  by  the  Confedera 
tion  as  minister  to  England,  but  that  England  sent  none  to 
America  in  return.  In  the  fall  of  1789  the  President  instructed 
Gouverneur  Morris,  then  minister  to  France,  to  proceed  to  Lon 
don  as  a  private  agent  and  to  discuss  with  the  British  ministers 
the  project  of  a  treaty  of  commerce  with  the  United  States. 
He  did  so,  and  reported  that  when  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  Duke  of 
Leeds  asked  him  why  a  regular  minister  was  not  sent  he  an 
swered  them  that  the  United  States  could  not  send  one  on  ac 
count  of  the  neglect  with  which  the  former  appointment  had 
been  treated.  They  asked  him  if  America  would  appoint  a  min 
ister  if  Great  Britain  would  do  the  same.  He  replied  that  he 
thought  so,  but  was  not  authorized  to  give  any  positive  assurance. 
Writing  to  the  President  on  this  subject,  John  Adams,  speaking 
from  the  fullness  of  his  own  unpleasant  experience,  said:  "As 
the  King  of  Great  Britain  twice  proposed  to  the  United  States 
an  exchange  of  ministers,  and  when  the  United  States  agreed  to 
the  proposition  flew  from  it,  to  send  a  minister  again  to  St. 
James  till  that  court  explicitly  promises  to  send  one  to  America 
is  a  humiliation  to  which  the  United  States  ought  never  to  sub 
mit.  The  utmost  length  that  can  now  be  gone,  with  dignity, 
would  be  to  send  a  minister  to  the  court  of  London,  with  in 
structions  to  present  his  credentials,  demand  an  audience,  make 
his  remonstrance;  but  to  make  no  establishment,  and  demand 
his  audience  of  leave  and  quit  the  kingdom  in  one,  two,  or  three 
months  if  a  minister  of  equal  degree  were  not  appointed  and 
actually  sent  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  from  the  King 
of  Great  Britain." 

Again,  it  was  decided  that  a  nonacceptable  minister  might  be 
refused  by  the  Government  to  which  he  was  accredited.  "It  is 
a  general  rule,"  said  Jefferson,  "that  no  nation  has  a  right  to 
keep  an  agent  within  the  limits  of  another  without  the  consent 
of  that  other."  And  again:  " Every  foreign  agent  depends 
upon  the  double  will  of  the  two  Governments — of  that  which 
sends  him,  and  of  that  which  is  to  permit  the  exercise  of  his 
functions  within  its  territory — and  when  either  of  these  wills  is 
refused  or  withdrawn,  his  authority  to  act  within  that  territory 


164  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

becomes  incomplete.  By  what  member  of  the  (our)  Government 
the  right  of  giving  or  withdrawing  permission  is  to  be  exercised 
here  is  a  question  on  which  no  foreign  agent  can  be  permitted  to 
make  himself  the  umpire.  It  is  sufficient  for  him,  under  our 
Government,  that  he  is  informed  of  it  by  the  executive. ' ' 

It  was  also,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  in  a  very  noteworthy 
case,  determined  that  a  minister  who  misconducted  himself  so  as 
to  make  himself  offensive  or  inacceptable  to  the  nation  which  had 
received  him,  might  be  sent  back.  Diplomatic  correspondence 
was  to  be  held  confidential,  unless  otherwise  ordered  by  the  state 
department;  it  was  not  to  be  disclosed  even  at  the  demand  of 
Congress.  The  President  and  department  of  state  were  to  re 
ceive  no  self-constituted  missions  from  foreign  lands,  and  no 
communications  from  foreigners  on  international  matters  ex 
cepting  through  the  official  channels  of  duly  accredited  minis 
ters.  The  general  manner  of  a  minister's  intercourse  with  the 
foreign  Government  to  which  he  was  accredited  was  admirably 
prescribed  by  Jefferson  in  his  instructions  to  Thomas  Pinckney, 
when  the  latter  was  sent  as  our  second  minister  to  England: 
"To  you,  sir,"  he  said,  "it  will  be  unnecessary  to  undertake  a 
general  delineation  of  the  duties  of  the  office  to  which  you  are 
appointed.  I  shall,  therefore,  only  express  a  desire  that  they 
may  be  constantly  exercised  in  that  spirit  of  sincere  friendship 
which  we  bear  to  the  English  nation  and  that  in  all  transactions 
with  the  minister  his  good  dispositions  be  conciliated  by  whatever 
in  language  or  attentions  may  tend  to  that  effect.  With  respect 
to  their  Government  or  policy,  as  concerning  themselves  or  other 
nations,  we  wish  not  to  intermeddle  in  word  or  deed,  and  that  it 
be  not  understood  that  our  Government  permits  itself  to  enter 
tain  either  a  will  or  opinion  on  that  subject. ' ' 

In  such  manner  were  the  organic  and  operative  details  of  the 
state  department  arranged  at  the  beginning  of  its  career.  It 
then  remained  for  those  rules  and  principles  to  be  practically  ap 
plied  to  the  conduct  of  our  foreign  relations. 


VII 

ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY 

THE  beginning  of  our  constitutional  career,  under  the  ad 
ministration  of  Washington,  found  our  foreign  relations 
in  a  primitive  and  fragmentary  state.  With  Great  Britain  we 
had  recently  been  fighting,  and  our  peace  treaty  with  her  was 
as  yet  unfulfilled  in  some  important  details;  and  all  efforts  to 
cultivate  closer  diplomatic  or  commercial  relations  had  thus  far 
come  to  naught.  France  had  been  and  was  still  nominally  our 
ally,  and  we  were  trying  to  make  a  new  consular  convention 
with  her,  while  she  was  manifesting  an  increasing  disposition  to 
patronize  us  and  to  draw  us  into  her  quarrels  as  a  tool  for  her 
own  use.  With  Spain  our  controversy  over  the  Mississippi  River 
and  the  Yazoo  lands  was  still  unsettled.  Holland  had  loaned  us 
money  and  sent  a  minister  to  us ;  and  with  her  and  Sweden  and 
Prussia  we  had  commercial  treaties.  To  the  piratical  Barbary 
States  we  were  paying  tribute,  or  blackmail.  With  the  rest  of 
the  world  our  relations  were  nil.  To  most  foreign  nations  we 
were  almost  unknown,  and  the  potentialities  of  our  development 
were  quite  unappreciated. 

It  was  a  curious  turn  of  the  irony  of  fate  that  the  first  diplo 
matic  conflict  of  the  administration,  a  slight  but  significant  one, 
should  be  with  France.  Immediately  upon  his  inauguration  as 
President,  Washington  was  approached  by  the  French  minister, 
the  Count  de  Moustier,  in  a  patronizing  manner,  with  a  request, 
almost  a  demand,  for  private  personal  interviews,  in  which  mat 
ters  of  international  business  might  be  orally  discussed.  It  may 
be  that  he  thought  that  such  a  privilege  was  his  due  in  view  of 
the  services  France  had  rendered  to  us  in  the  Revolution,  and  of 
the  close  relationship  which  still  existed  between  the  two  coun 
tries.  It  is  more  probable  that  he  thought  that  he  would  be 
able  to  patronize  Washington,  and  that  the  new  republic  would 
be  glad  thus  to  make  itself  a  tail  to  the  French  diplomatic  kite. 

165 


166  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

In  either  case  he  was  quickly  made  to  realize  his  mistake.  "Wash 
ington  was  not  a  skilled  diplomat  in  the  European  sense  of  the 
word,  but  he  had  the  supreme  quality  of  common  sense,  and  that 
revealed  to  him  the  unwisdom  of  pursuing  such  a  course.  He 
therefore  replied  to  the  French  minister  in  phrases  which  set 
for  all  time  the  standard  of  American  diplomatic  inter 
course.  He  protested  that  he  had  no  thought  of  impeding  the 
despatch  or  frustrating  the  success  of  business  by  giving  atten 
tion  to  idle  forms  or  by  standing  upon  imaginary  dignity.  But 
if  there  were  rules  of  procedure  which  had  originated  from  the 
wisdom  of  statesmen  and  were  sanctioned  by  the  common  con 
sent  of  nations,  it  would  not  be  prudent  for  a  young  State  to 
dispense  with  them  altogether,  at  least  without  substantial  cause 
for  so  doing.  He  believed  that,  in  order  to  avoid  accidental 
mistakes  or  unintentional  misrepresentations,  it  was  best  to  con 
duct  such  negotiations  in  writing ;  and  this  method  he  would  him 
self  pursue  if  he  were  obliged  personally  to  conduct  negotiations. 
But  he  had  been  informed  that  in  most  polished  nations  there 
was  an  established  system  under  which  for  the  sake  of  utility, 
as  well  as  from  necessity  and  the  reason  of  the  thing,  foreign  as 
well  as  other  business  was  digested  and  prepared  by  the  heads 
of  the  great  departments  of  state. 

This  was  a  masterpiece.  In  words  of  consummate  courtesy, 
yet  veiling  a  stinging  rebuke  which  the  French  diplomat  could 
not  fail  to  feel,  Washington  made  it  clear  that  the  President  of 
the  United  States  must  be  considered  the  peer  of  any  European 
sovereign  in  dignity,  and  that  foreign  ministers  must  address 
themselves  not  directly  to  him  but  to  his  secretary  of  state  for 
foreign  affairs.  Moreover,  no  nation,  not  even  France,  was  to 
have  any  special  privileges  in  dealing  with  this  Government. 
France  was  not  our  superior.  She  was  merely  our  equal;  and 
all  other  nations  were  her  equals.  The  United  States  regarded 
them  all  impartially.  The  Count  de  Moustier  quickly  realized 
his  error  and  sought  to  repair  it  with  apologies,  excuses,  and 
efforts  to  show  that  what  he  had  asked  was  not  unusual  among 
nations ;  but  it  was  in  vain.  Washington  had  spoken,  and  from 
the  safe  and  sane  position  which  he  had  taken  he  would  not  re 
cede.  He  had  fixed,  once  and  for  all  time,  the  fundamental 
principles  of  American  intercourse  with  foreign  powers.  Nor 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  167 

were  those  principles  again  seriously  challenged ;  or,  if  they  were 
in  one  or  two  instances,  the  results  were  disastrous  to  the  chal 
lengers.  The  whole  world  was  given  unmistakably  to  under 
stand  that  the  United  States  was,  at  least  in  foreign  affairs,  a  na 
tion,  the  peer  of  all  nations,  and  was  to  be  treated  with  the 
deference  due  to  any  other  sovereign  State.  It  does  not  appear 
that  Washington  took  counsel  in  this  matter  with  any  one  else. 
Had  he  done  so  it  would  have  been  with  either  Hamilton  or  Jay, 
since  Jefferson  was  still  in  France.  Doubtless  either  Hamilton 
or  Jay  would  have  taken  the  same  stand  that  he  did.  But  the 
tone  of  his  utterance  sounds  like  Washington  himself  and  alone. 
It  was  he  who  had  a  few  months  before  laid  the  foundation  of 
our  foreign  policy  in  the  principle  of  keeping  the  United  States 
"disengaged  from  the  labyrinth  of  European  politics  and  wars." 
It  was  he  who  now  similarly  laid  the  foundation  of  our  diplo 
matic  practice;  and  of  such  service  of  his  there  was,  as  we  shall 
see,  still  more  to  come. 

One  of  the  earliest  pieces  of  international  business  transacted 
by  the  administration  was  the  consular  convention  with  France. 
Such  a  treaty  had  been  negotiated  in  1784  by  Franklin,  but  had 
not  been  approved  by  Congress.  In  1788,  Jefferson,  under  con 
gressional  instructions,  had  negotiated  another,  which  was  sup 
posed  to  be  free  from  the  objectionable  features  of  the  former, 
and  in  the  first  year  of  the  new  Government,  before  its  author 
had  returned  from  France  to  become  secretary  of  state,  it  was 
laid  before  the  President  and  the  Senate  for  approval.  Jay  was 
acting  as  secretary  of  state,  and  while  he  did  not  altogether  like 
all  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  he  advised  its  ratification,  as 
probably  the  best  we  could  get  at  that  time  and  as  calculated  to 
serve  an  urgent  and  important  purpose.  Thereupon  the  Senate 
gave,  by  the  necessary  two-thirds  vote,  its  advice  and  consent  to 
its  ratification,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution. 
That  was  the  first  participation  of  the  Senate  in  the  treaty-mak 
ing  power  of  the  United  States. 

There  speedily  came  a  marked  and  salutary  change  in  the  at 
titude  of  the  world  at  large  toward  this  country,  due  not  so 
much  to  our  diplomacy  as  to  our  domestic  economy.  The  tran 
scendent  genius  of  Alexander  Hamilton  as  a  financier  and  as 
an  organizer  of  national  prosperity — one  of  the  very  greatest 


168  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

constructive  statesmen  the  world  has  ever  known — produced 
prompt  and  gratifying  results.  Order  was  brought  out  of 
chaos,  and  impending  bankruptcy  was  transformed  into  pecuni 
ary  abundance.  A  year  or  two  before  our  credit  had  been  one 
of  the  poorest  in  the  world.  Now  it  became  the  best.  Not  Ham 
ilton,  nor  any  friend  of  his,  but  his  most  persistent  and  unre 
lenting  enemy,  Jefferson  himself,  reported  to  Jay  from  Paris 
in  September,  1789,  only  six  months  after  Hamilton  had  taken 
charge  of  the  national  Treasury,  that  in  Amsterdam,  then  the 
financial  capital  and  money  market  of  the  world,  the  credit  of 
the  United  States  stood  first  of  all  nations  that  had  need  to  bor 
row.  A  short  time  before  our  bonds  had  stood  at  93,  but  now 
had  risen  to  99 ;  our  securities  were  being  eagerly  sought  by  in 
dividuals  and  corporations  in  Holland,  France,  and  England, 
and  in  a  short  time  every  dollar  of  our  public  debt  would  prob 
ably  be  held  in  Europe.  At  the  same  time  American  commerce 
advanced  literally  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Every  port  was  a 
shipyard  for  the  construction  of  vessels.  Exports  enormously 
increased.  American  ships  began  to  throng  the  ports  of  Europe, 
and  even  visited  those  of  India  and  China.  On  Jay's  recom 
mendation  an  American  consul  had  been  appointed  at  Canton 
in  1786,  and  he  now  soon  had  work  enough  to  keep  him  busy. 
In  1791,  Captain  Gray  took  his  ship  Columbia  first  of  all  Amer 
ican  vessels  around  the  world;  on  the  way  visiting  the  Oregon 
coast  and  discovering  the  Columbia  River,  thus  giving  us  our 
claim  to  the  Oregon  territory  and  to  a  frontage  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  In  a  year  America  became  commercially  a  world  power. 
This  extraordinary  prosperity  began,  it  is  true,  before  the 
administration  of  Washington  as  President  and  of  Hamilton  as 
secretary  of  the  treasury ;  yet  it  is  none  the  less  to  be  credited 
thereto.  The  fact  was  advertised  abroad  that  Washington 's  ad 
vice  would  be  followed  in  the  creation  of  a  strong  Federal  Gov 
ernment  with  power  to  levy  and  collect  taxes ;  and  that  announce 
ment,  believed,  caused  immediate  improvement  in  American 
credit.  So  when  it  was  known  here  that  Hamilton's  policy  of 
a  protective  tariff  was  to  be  followed  by  Congress,  industry  was 
greatly  stimulated,  in  advance  of  the  actual  enactment.  It  was 
the  confident  anticipation  of  Hamilton's  policy  at  first,  and  aft 
erward  the  practical  working  of  that  policy,  that  caused  the 


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  169 

revolution  in  our  affairs,  and  that  won  for  him  the  not  exag 
gerated  tribute  of  Daniel  Webster:  "He  touched  the  dead 
corpse  of  Public  Credit  and  it  sprung  upon  its  feet.  .  .  .  The 
fabled  birth  of  Minerva  from  the  brain  of  Jove  was  hardly  more 
sudden  or  more  perfect  than  that  of  the  financial  system  of  the 
United  States  from  the  conceptions  of  Alexander  Hamilton." 

These  changed  conditions  correspondingly  changed  the  atti 
tude  of  the  world  toward  the  United  States.  It  was  realized 
everywhere  that  here  was  a  new  force,  to  be  seriously  reckoned 
with  and  appreciated.  Nations  began  to  seek  relations  with  us ; 
to  send  ministers  hither  and  to  receive  our  ministers  with  con 
sideration.  Our  diplomatic  service  was  pretty  completely  or 
ganized  in  1791  and  1792,  in  the  appointment  of  five  ministers 
to  European  countries.  Thomas  Pinckney  of  South  Carolina,  a 
man  of  exceptional  force  of  character  and  high  ability,  was  sent 
to  Great  Britain.  In  France,  Jefferson  had  been  temporarily 
succeeded  by  William  Short  of  Virginia,  but  he  was  now  re 
placed  by  the  expert  and  masterful  Gouverneur  Morris  of  New 
York,  while  Short  was  transferred  to  Holland,  there  to  serve 
for  two  years  and  then  give  way  to  John  Quincy  Adams.  To 
Portugal,  David  Humphreys  of  Connecticut  was  accredited ;  while 
to  Spain  was  sent  William  Carmichael  of  Maryland,  who  had 
served  there  as  Jay's  secretary  and  had  since  been  charge  d'af 
faires  at  that  court.  These  were  all  the  legations  which  were  es 
tablished  under  that  administration. 

The  appointment  of  Morris  as  minister  to  France  was  not 
accomplished  without  an  unfortunate  manifestation  of  factional 
ism  and  the  intrusion  of  foreign  influences  into  American  affairs. 
Ratification  was  opposed  in  the  Senate  by  a  few  partisan  friends 
of  France,  who  did  not  regard  him  as  sufficiently  sympathetic 
toward  the  revolutionists  in  that  country — as  though  a  man's 
fitness  to  represent  and  to  serve  his  own  Government  was  deter 
mined  by  his  personal  opinions  on  some  matters  of  foreign  poli 
tics  !  Washington  chose  Morris  to  transact  the  diplomatic  busi 
ness  of  the  United  States,  not  to  be  a  propagandist  either  for  or 
against  the  French  Revolution.  There  is  only  too  good  reason 
for  suspecting  that  this  opposition  to  him  was  clandestinely  in 
cited  and  promoted  by  more  or  less  corrupt  French  agencies, 
following  the  practice  which  had  prevailed  under  the  Confedera- 


170  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tion,  when  such  influences  notoriously  prevailed.  However,  the 
opposition  failed,  and  Morris  proved  himself,  during  a  too  brief 
career,  a  singularly  capable  and  worthy  minister.  Indeed,  his 
two  years  of  valiant  and  brilliant  service  at  Paris  form  one  of 
the  brightest  passages  in  our  early  diplomatic  history.  Morris 
was,  of  course,  accredited  to  the  court  of  France  while  there  was 
yet  a  royal  court  at  least  in  name,  and  while  Louis  XVI  was 
still  nominally  king.  When  that  sovereign  and  his  family  were 
seen  to  be  in  danger  of  the  death,  which  in  fact  soon  overtook 
them,  Morris  chivalrously  engaged  in  an  undertaking  to  facili 
tate  their  escape  to  a  place  of  safety.  This  plan  failed  at  the 
last  moment  through  the  indecision  and  timidity  of  the  king; 
though  the  king  preferred  it  to  any  other  scheme  for  safety 
which  had  been  proposed.  Morris  reluctantly  accepted  the  cus 
tody  of  the  king's  personal  money,  and  succeeded  in  withholding 
it  from  the  revolutionists  who  sought  to  confiscate  it.  He  had 
/  the  perilous  distinction  of  being  the  only  foreign  minister  who 

/  remained  in  Paris  during  the  Reign  of  Terror ;  as  another  Amer- 
I  ican  minister,  Mr.  Washburne,  many  years  afterward  was  the 
/  only  one  to  remain  there  during  the  double  siege  of  that  city  in 
the  Terrible  Year  of  1870-71.  During  that  tragic  era  it  was  his 
grateful  privilege  to  succor  Lafayette  and  his  family,  when  that 
noble  friend  of  America  was  cast  into  prison.  The  unscrupulous 
French  minister  for  foreign  affairs  tried  at  first  to  tempt  and 
then  to  bully  him  into  a  corrupt  bargain  concerning  the  Amer 
ican  debt  which  was  held  in  France,  from  which  that  minister 
would  personally  derive  dishonest  profits.  Morris's  reply  was  a 
blunt  refusal  and  a  demand  for  his  passport.  At  this  the  scoun 
drelly  minister  apologized  and  begged  him  not  to  leave.  Ulti 
mately  Morris  had  the  satisfaction  of  paying  off  honestly  the 
entire  American  indebtedness  to  France. 

There  now  arose  for  the  first  time  in  our  history  the  always 

v>,  important  and  delicate  question  of  the  recognition  of  a  new 
National  Government ;  in  this  case  the  more  delicate  because  the 
country  involved  was  our  own  recent  ally,  France.  In  August, 
1792,  Morris  reported  that  the  king  had  been  deposed  and  a  new 
Government  established.  The  new  Government  might  prove 
permanent,  or  it  might  last  only  a  short  time.  He  found  himself, 
therefore,  "in  a  state  of  contingent  responsibility  of  the  most 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  171 

delicate  kind,"  and  asked  for  instructions.  Jefferson,  as  secre 
tary  of  state,  did  not  reply  until  the  following  November,  and 
during  the  interval  watched  the  progress  of  the  Revolution 
closely  and  took  counsel  with  the  President  and  the  other  mem 
bers  of  the  cabinet.  Finally  he  wrote:  "It  accords  with  our^ 
principles  to  acknowledge  any  Government  to  be  rightful  which 
is  formed  by  the~will  of  the  nation,  substantially  declared.  The 
late  Government  was  of  this  kind,  and  was  accordingly  acknowl 
edged  by  all  the  branches  of  ours ;  so  any  alteration  of  it  which 
shall  be  made  by  the  will  of  the  nation,  substantially  declared, 
will  doubtless  be  acknowledged  in  like  manner.  With  such  a 
Government  every  kind  of  business  may  be  done.  But  there  are 
some  matters  which  I  conceive  might  be  transacted  with  a  gov 
ernment  de  facto,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  reforming  the  un^ 
friendly  restrictions  on  our  commerce  and  navigation." 

There  was  in  this  latter  a  strange  misconception  of  the  func 
tions  of  governmental  departments,  in  the  reference  to  recogni 
tion  "by  all  the  branches"  of  our  Government.  Surely  recogni 
tion  was  and  is  exclusively  the  function  of  that  branch  of  the 
Government  which  is  charged  with  the  conduct  of  foreign  af 
fairs.  There  was  also  a  touch  of  hesitancy  in  the  mere  promise 
that  the  new  Government  would  doubtless  be  acknowledged.  A 
more  resolute  and  decisive  secretary  would  have  given  positive 
instructions  to  recognize  or  not  to  recognize  the  revolutionary 
regime.  Nevertheless,  as  this  was  the  first  case  of  recognition 
in  our  history,  a  certain  hesitancy  was  pardonable,  the  more  so 
since  Jefferson  in  the  following  March,  1793,  wrote  again  a  letter 
more  positive  in  tone,  which  served  as  a  foundation  for  our  whole 
subsequent  policy  toward  new  Governments.  "We  surely  can 
not,"  he  said,  "deny  to  any  nation  that  right  whereon  our  own 
Government  is  founded — that  every  one  may  govern  itself  ac 
cording  to  whatever  form  it  pleases,  and  change  these  forms  at 
its  own  will ;  and  that  it  may  transact  its  business  with  foreign  **- 
nations  through  whatever  organ  it  thinks  proper,  whether  king, 
convention,  assembly,  committee,  president,  or  anything  else  it 
may  choose.  The  will  of  the  nation  is  the  only  thing  essential 
to  be  regarded." 

In  January,  1793,  the  King  of  France  was  put  to  death,  and 
in  February  Mr.  Ternant,  the  French  minister  to  the  United 


172  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

States,  notified  our  Government,  in  the  name  of  the  Provisional 
Executive  Council,  that  the  French  nation  had  formed  itself  into 
a  republic.  Jefferson  promptly  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  this 
information,  in  the  name  of  the  President,  and  expressed  the 
great  pleasure  which  the  Government  and  all  citizens  of  the 
United  States  felt  in  seeing  the  liberties  of  France  "rise  su 
perior  to  foreign  invasion  and  domestic  trouble, ' '  a  phrase  which 
certainly  went  as  far  as  neutrality  would  permit,  if  not  somewhat 
fivrthfir3  in  its  expression  of  sympathy  with  France  in  her  con 
flict  with  other  nations  with  which  we  were  on  equally  friendly 
terms.  Had  the  foreign  invaders  of  France  been  so  inclined, 
they  might  have  regarded  that  expression  as  the  manifestation 
of  an  unfriendly  disposition  toward  them;  though  to  be  sure  it 
was  technically  justifiable  on  the  ground  that  we  were  still 
France's  ally,  for  defense  if  not  for  aggression,  and  therefore 
properly  sympathized  with  her  in  her  resistance  to  alien  attacks. 
The  question  of  recognition  was  revived  a  little  later,  when 
Ternant  was  succeeded  as  French  minister  to  the  United  States 
by  an  erratic  young  revolutionist  of  the  Girondin  faction,  named 
Genet,  who  had  little  diplomatic  training,  no  fitness,  no  courteous 
manners,  and  a  minimum  of  common  sense  on  any  topic.  It  was 
he  over  whom  the  question  had  risen,  whether  he  was  to  be  re 
ceived  by  the  Government  and  in  what  capacity.  That  question 
was,  of  course,  more  than  personal.  It  involved  again  the  grave 
problem  of  the  recognition  of  a  new  Government,  since  Genet  was 
the  first  minister  appointed  since  the  execution  of  the  king,  whom 
we  had  recognized  as  the  lawful  ruler  of  that  country.  "What 
was  to  be  the  attitude  of  the  United  States  toward  this  change  ? 
Should  this  country  recognize  the  new  revolutionary  Govern 
ment  and  receive  its  minister "?  Or  should  it  give  such  recogni 
tion  to  the  man  who  assumed  to  act  as  regent  in  the  late  king's 
stead?  Hamilton  sought  the  judicial  counsel  of  Jay,  then  chief 
justice  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Jay  replied  that  he  would  not  re 
ceive  any  jtninister  from  theregent  until  he  was  regent  de  facto ^ 
which  meant  that  the  regent  was  not  to  be  recognized  at  all,  since 
he  was  quite  unable  to  establish  his  authority  in  fact.  Jay  also, 
at  Hamilton's  request,  prepared  a  draft  of  a  neutrality  declara 
tion,  which  said  nothing x  about  treaties,  and  which  carefully 
avoided  using  the  word  "neutrality"  because  at  that  time  that 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  173 

word  was  associated  with  the  idea  of  nonintercourse  between  na 
tions,  and  there  was  no  wish  to  proceed  to  that  extreme;  and 
this  draft  probably  served  as  the  outline  of  the  neutrality  proc 
lamation  which  was  written  by  Edmund  Randolph  and  promul 
gated  by  Washington. 

The  second  question  of  recognition  arose  only  a  little  later. 
In  the  fall  of  1794  the  conquest  of  Holland  by  France  seemed 
imminent,  and  the  American  minister  to  that  country,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  wrote  home  for  instructions  as  to  his  course  in 
that  contingency.  By  that  time  Jefferson  had  retired  from  the 
state  department,  and  Edmund  Randolph  was  secretary  in  his 
stead,  and  he  replied:  "The  maxim  of  the  president  toward 
France  has  been  to  follow  the  government  of  the  people.  What-^ 
soever  regimen  a  majority  of  them  shall  establish  is  both  de  facto 
and  (£e  ji^^hajj^j^  minister  there  addresses  himself, 

it"  tnerefore~the  independency  of  the  United  Netherlands  con 
tinues,  it  is  wished  that  you  make  no  difficulty  in  passing  from 
the  old  to  any  new  constitution  of  the  people."  Should,  how 
ever,  he  continued,  the  Netherlands  become  a  dependency  of 
France,  the  minister's  mission  would  ipso  facto  be  ended,  by  the 
extinction  of  the  Government  to  which  he  was  accredited.  In 
that  case  he  should  remain  on  the  ground,  to  observe  and  re 
port  the  progress  of  affairs,  avoiding  the  giving  of  offense ;  and, 
so  long  as  the  issue  was  doubtful,  he  should  discreetly  avoid 
committing  himself  and  his  Government  to  either  side. 

Just  here,  in  passing,  there  should  be  noted  another  of  Wash 
ington's  masterful  contributions  to  the  upbuilding  of  the  na 
tion's  foreign  policy.  He  saw  with  prophetic  vision  the  im 
pending  conflict  between  England  and  France,  and  the  certainty 
that  each  party  would  strive  to  implicate  the  United  States  in  it 
to  its  own  advantage,  and  he  determined  to  forefend  so  far  as 
possible  any  such  catastrophe.  Accordingly  he  lost  no  favorable 
opportunity  of  emphasizing  the  neutrality  and  the  fearless  in 
dependence  of  the  United  States.  In  1792  we  were  having 
troubles  with  the  Indian  tribes,  and  a  rumor  arose  that  we  were 
seeking  or  would  seek  the  aid  of  England  in  composing  them. 
Upon  that  Washington  wrote  to  Morris,  in  France,  saying: 
"One  thing  I  must  not  pass  over  in  silence,  lest  you  should  in 
fer  from  it  that  Mr.  D had  authority  for  reporting  that  the 


174  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

United  States  had  asked  the  mediation  of  Great  Britain  to  bring 
about  a  peace  between  them  and  the  Indians.  You  may  be  fully 
assured  that  such  mediation  never  was  asked,  that  the  asking 
of  it  never  was  in  contemplation,  and  I  think  I  might  go  further 
and  say  that  it  not  only  never  will  be  asked,  but  would  be  re 
jected  if  offered.  T|he  United  States  will  never  have  occasion, 
I  hope,  to  ask  for  the  interposition  of  that  power  or  any  other  to 
establish  peace  within  their  own  territory."  Thus  temperately 
but  with  just  pride  was  notice  served  upon  the  world  that  the 
new  American  republic  was  sufficient  unto  itself. 

But  now  the  war  clouds  which  had  been  gathering  over  Europe 
began  to  break  in  fury,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  two  great  na 
tions  with  which  our  relations  were  closest  would  soon  be  in 
volved  in  strife.  Washington  was  not  unsympathetic  toward 
France,  but  neither  was  he  willing  to  be  subservient  to  her.  In 
July,  1791,  he  wrote  to  Lafayette  a  sympathetic  letter,  but  con 
veyed  in  it  a  warning  which  was  none  the  less  marked  because 
it  was  couched  in  courteous  and  kindly  terms.  "The  decrees 
of  the  National  Assembly  respecting  our  tobacco  and  oil  do  not, '  ' 
he  said,  "appear  to  be  very  pleasing  to  the  people  of  this  coun 
try;  but  I  do  not  presume  that  any  hasty  measures  will  be 
adopted  in  consequence  thereof;  for  we  have  never  entertained 
a  doubt  of  the  friendly  disposition  of  the  French  nation  toward 
us,  and  are  therefore  persuaded  that,  if  they  have  done  any 
thing  which  seems  to  bear  hard  upon  us  at  a  time  when  the 
Assembly  must  have  been  occupied  in  very  important  matters, 
and  which,  perhaps,  would  not  allow  time  for  due  consideration 
of  the  subject,  they  will  in  the  moment  of  calm  deliberation  alter 
it  and  do  what  is  right. "  Later,  in  March,  1793,  he  saw  that 
the  general  war  in  Europe  was  at  hand.  "I  trust,"  he  said, 
"that  we  shall  have  too  just  a  sense  of  our  own  interest  to  origi 
nate  any  cause  that  may  involve  us  in  it." 

Then  the  storm  broke,  and  Great  Britain  declared  war  against 
France,  or  against  the  Reign  of  Terror.  The  news  reached 
Washington  at  Mount  Yernon.  He  prepared  for  immediate  at 
tendance  at  the  seat  of  National  Government,  and  meanwhile 
wrote  to  Jefferson,  the  secretary  of  state,  as  follows:  "War 
having  actually  commenced  between  France  and  Great  Britain, 
it  behooves  the  Government  of  this  country  to  use  every  means 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  175 

in  its  power  to  prevent  the  citizens  thereof  from  embroiling  us 
with  either  of  those  powers,  by  endeavoring  to  maintain  a  strict 
neutrality."  And  he  requested  Jefferson  to  give  the  matter 
consideration  so  that  appropriate  action  might  be  taken  without 
delay.  Such  was  Washington's  personal  policy,  but  he  was  not 
the  autocrat  to  impose  it  as  his  own  will.  He  consulted  his 
cabinet,  submitting  to  them  a  series  of  questions,  of  which  there 
was  no  lack  in  either  number  or  importance.  He  recognized 
the  fact  that  our  treaty  with  France  did  bind  us  to  guarantee 
her  possession  of  her  West  India  Islands  in  any  defensive  war 
which  she  might  wage.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  France  had  de 
clared  war  against  England,  and  this  was  therefore  not  a  defen 
sive  but  an  aggressive  war.  Did  the  treaty  of  alliance,  in  such 
circumstances,  bind  us  to  be  France's  ally  in  this  war?  Or 
were  we  to  stand  aloof,  in  strict  neutrality  between  our  recent 
antagonist  and  our  helpful  friend?  What  reception  was  to  be 
given  to  the  French  minister  who  was  on  his  way  hither  to  en 
list  our  aid  ?  Should  the  administration  act  according  to  its  own 
judgment,  or  should  it  assemble  Congress  in  a  special  session  to 
deal  with  the  crisis? 

The  result  was  the  confirmation  of  Washington's  policy.  Jef-  r\ 
ferson  would  probably  have  preferred  alliance  with  France;  but 
he  acceded  to  the  opinion  of  his  colleagues  and  the  cabinet 
unanimously  advised  Washington  to  issue  a  proclamation  of  neu 
trality.  Jefferson  agreed  to  the  promulgation  of  a  neutrality 
treaty,  but  he  opposed  using  the  word  ' '  neutrality ' '  in  it,  not  for 
the  reasons  for  which  it  was  actually  omitted,  but  because  he 
thought  that  it  had  a  market  value  and  should  not  be  used  gratis ! 
Our  neutrality  was,  he  said,  "  worth  something  to  the  powers  at 
war.  They  would  bid  for  it,  and  we  might  reasonably  ask  a 
price,  the  broadest  privileges  of  neutral  nations."  This  was 
certainly  an  extraordinary  course  to  propose,  which  would  have 
put  our  foreign  policy  on  a  commercial  rather  than  an  ethical 
basis.  It  would  obviously,  moreover,  have  subjected  us  to  grave 
danger  of  embroilment  with  one  or  both  of  the  belligerent  pow 
ers.  The  proposal  seems  not  to  have  been  seriously  considered 
by  the  other  members  of  the  Government.  It  was  also  decided 
to  receive  the  French  minister  in  a  spirit  of  benevolent  neutrality, 
and  not  to  call  Congress  together.  Thus  Washington's  will  pre- 


f 


176  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

vailed.  Hamilton  drafted  the  questions,  it  is  said,  and  Edmund 
Randolph,  the  attorney  general,  wrote  the  proclamation  of  neu 
trality.  But  in  doing  so  they  were  the  mere  secretaries  of  the 
President.  The  policy  which  was  thus  executed  was  Washing 
ton's  own.  It  had  been  repeatedly  forecast  by  him,  in  many 
utterances,  on  many  occasions,  and  it  was  unmistakably  re 
hearsed  in  his  terse  and  pithy  letter  to  Jefferson  just  before  this 
cabinet  council  was  held. 

The  neutral  proclamation  of  April  22,  1793,  was  epochal. 
Brief  and  to  the  point,  it  fixed  forever  the  attitude  of  the  United 
States  toward  European  wars.  "The  duty  and  interest  of  the 
United  States  require, ' '  it  said,  ' '  that  they  should  with  sincerity 
and  good  faith  adopt  and  pursue  a  conduct  friendly  and  impar 
tial  toward  the  belligerent  powers."  Therefore  it  was  declared 
to  be  the  disposition  of  the  United  States  to  observe  such  con 
duct  ;  citizens  of  the  United  States  were  warned  that  they  would 
subject  themselves  to  punishment  or  forfeiture  under  the  law  of 
nations  by  joining  in  the  hostilities  in  any  way  or  by  carrying 
contraband  goods,  from  which  punishment  and  forfeiture  the 
United  States  would  not  protect  them ;  and  that  all  persons  who 
violated  the  law  of  nations  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United 
States  would  be  prosecuted  by  this  Government.  That  was  the 
approved  foundation  of  the  unbroken  policy  of  the  American 
government  from  that  time  to  the  present,  as  expressed  and 
maintained  in  numerous  proclamations  and  statutes.  Its  estab 
lishment  at  that  time  was  startling,  and  fraught  with  momentous 
consequences  both  at  home  and  abroad.  In  the  latter  respect  it 
served  notice  upon  the  nations  of  the  world  that  America,  which 
hitherto  had  been  involved  in  every  European  war  in  which 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  Spain  were  participants,  was  never 
again  to  be  made  a  party  to  alien  feuds.  In  domestic  affairs  it 
reminded  Americans  that  we  were  at  last  a  nation,  by  ourselves, 
with  our  own  interests,  and  that  we  were  no  longer  to  regard  our 
selves  as  colonists  or  as  an  appendage  to  any  other  power.  At 
last  the  words  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  were  to  be  ful 
filled,  and  we  were  to  hold  Great  Britain,  and  France,  and  "the 
rest  of  mankind,  enemies  in  war,  in  peace  friends."  This  proc 
lamation  was  supplemented  in  1794  by  an  Act  of  Congress  de 
fining  offenses  against  neutrality  and  prescribing  penalties  there- 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  177 

for.  Long  afterward,  in  1823,  speaking  in  the  British.  Parlia 
ment,  Canning  said:  "If  I  wished  for  a  guide  in  a  system  of 
neutrality,  I  should  take  that  laid  down  by  America  in  the  days 
of  the  presidency  of  Washington  and  the  secretaryship  of  Jeffer 
son." 

-The  course  of  independence  and  neutrality  was,  however,  per 
sistently  beset  with  formidable  difficulties  of  two  kinds.  One 
arose  from  faction  at  home.  Under  the  dominance  of  Washing 
ton  the  cabinet  was  nominally  a  unit,  but  in  fact  there  was  a  bit 
ter  and  irreconcilable  conflict  of  policy  between  its  two  chief 
members.  Hamilton  doubtless  inclined  toward  Great  Britain 
rather  than  France,  but  he  was  above  all  for  strict  neutrality 
between  the  two  and  for  the  national  independence  of  America 
in  the  highest  degree.  Jefferson  had  a  passionate  hatred  of  Eng 
land  and  was  at  this  time  indulging  in  blind  adulation  of  France 
and  especially  of  the  French  Revolution.  While,  therefore, 
Jefferson  officially  agreed  to  Washington's  policy  of  neutrality, 
he  personally  opposed  it,  and  insisted  that,  under  our  treaty  of 
alliance  with  France,  we  should  give  that  country  all  possible  aid 
short  of  going  to  war  with  Great  Britain.  This  difference  of 
opinion  between  Jefferson  and  Hamilton  was  carried  into  the 
public  press,  in  a  series  of  controversial  articles  of  the  most 
extreme  and  violent  tone,  those  on  Jefferson 's  side  being  written, 
however,  not  by  himself  but,  at  his  earnest  request,  by  James 
Madison,  who  went  so  far  as  to  denounce  the  neutrality  procla 
mation  as  "a  most  unfortunate  error."  This  disgraceful 
wrangle  had  no  influence  upon  the  policy  of  the  Government, 
but  it  caused  it  much  embarrassment  and  was  mischievous  in 
its  effect  upon  the  public  mmd.j 

But  the  supreme  difficulties  in  the  way  of  neutrality  arose 
with  the  coming  of  the  new  French  minister.  Genet  arrived  in 
this  country  on  April  8,  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  and  in 
stantly  showed  that  he  regarded  the  United  States  not  as  a  neu 
tral  power  but  as  an  ally  of  France ;  and  not  even  an  equal  ally 
but  a  subordinate  appanage  to  that  country,  which  was  to  be 
treated  much  as  though  it  were  a  French  colony.  Instead  of 
hastening  to  the  seat  of  government  and  presenting  his  creden 
tials,  he  halted  at  Charleston  long  enough  to  fit  out  privateers 

and  organize  an  admiralty  court  at  the  French  consulate  for  the 
VOL.  i — 12 


178  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

condemning  of  prizes.  Then  he  proceeded  northward,  making 
inflammatory  speeches  to  the  public,  distributing  commissions 
in  the  French  army  and  navy,  recruiting  volunteers,  and  or 
ganizing  the  country  for  war  with  England,  and  for  the  in 
vasion  of  the  Spanish  territories  of  Florida  and  Louisiana.  He 
acted,  in  brief,  as  though  the  United  States  were  the  recruiting 
ground  of  Franc^/^Nor  did  he  lack  popular  encouragement. 
Almost  everywhere  he  was  greeted  with  enthusiastic  acclaim  by 
a  large  part  of  the  people.  In  a  considerable  part  of  the  Ameri 
can  press,  too,  he  was  supported  with  a  zeal  which  suggested 
the  influence  of  French  subsidies.  The  nation  was,  in  fact,  di 
vided  into  two  parties,  not  over  any  domestic  policy  but  over  a 
purely  foreign  concern.  One  was  the  French  party,  led  by 
Jefferson,  which  would  involve  us  in  a  foreign  war  in  which  we 
had  no  interest  and  would  put  us  back  into  the  very  plight  of 
subordination  to  European  interests  from  which  we  had  sought 
to  extricate  ourselves  by  the  Revolution.  The  other,  led  by 
Washington  and  Hamilton,  was  the  party  of  neutrality  and 
Americanism.  Generally  speaking,  these  parties  corresponded 
with  the  Federalist  and  Anti-Federalist  or  Republican  parties, 
which  had  arisen  over  the  Constitution.  The  Federalists  were 
now  known  as  the  Anglican  or  Anti-Gallican  party,  while  the 
Anti-Federalists  were  the  Gallican  or  French  party.  In  this  un 
happy  conflict  Washington  himself  was  not  spared,  but  was  pub 
licly  attacked  with  virulence.  It  was  the  most  critical  time  in 
the  history  of  the  young  republic.  Said  the  Jeffersonian  organ 
at  Philadelphia,  the  national  capital :  ' '  The  minister  of  France, 
I  hope,  will  act  with  firmness  and  spirit.  The  people  are  his 
friends,  or  the  friends  of  France,  and  he  will  have  nothing  to 
apprehend,  for,  as  yet,  the  people  are  the  sovereigns  of  the 
United  States. ' '  There  could  have  been  no  more  direct  approval 
and  encouragement  of  Genet's  monstrous  course,  nor  any  more 
flagrant  defiance  of  the  President's  proclamation  of  neutrality 
than  these  utterances,  for  which  the  American  secretary  of  state 
was  himself  responsible. 

Nor  were  these  pernicious  activities  confined  to  words  alone. 
Privateers  commissioned  by  Genet  began  preying  upon  British 
commerce ;  not  alone  on  the  high  seas  but  in  the  territorial  waters 
of  the  United  States,  one  actually  inside  of  the  Capes  of  the 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  179 

Delaware.  Genet  himself  reported  to  the  French  government 
that  he  had  fitted  out  fourteen  privateers  and  that  these  had 
captured  eighty  British  vessels ;  adding  that  his  activities  would 
have  been  still  more  extended  had  it  not  been  for  the  meddlesome 
obstruction  of  the  United  States  government.  Even  before  he 
reached  Philadelphia  and  was  received  by  Washington,  his  pri 
vateers  had  seized  British  ships  in  American  waters  and  brought 
them  into  American  ports  to  sell  them  as  prizes ;  and  the  British 
government  had  remonstrated  against  such  a  breach  of  neutral 
ity.  When  finally  he  reached  Philadelphia,  as  a  crowning  act 
of  insolence  he  had  one  of  his  law-breaking  privateers  fire  a 
salute  in  his  honor.  It  was  on  April  22  that  Washington  issued 
his  proclamation  of  neutrality.  It  was  not  until  May  18  that 
Genet  deigned  to  present  himself  with  his  credentials.  Wash 
ington  received  him  with  courtesy  and  dignity,  and  probably 
with  some  coolness,  which  was  amply  justified  by  Genet's  out 
rageous  conduct.  The  Frenchman  doubtless  expected  Wash 
ington  to  embrace  him  and  salute  him  as  ' '  Citizen ' ' ;  wherefore 
he  was  much  chagrined  and  went  away  grumbling  against  the 
"old  man,"  as  he  called  Washington,  as  an  enemy  of  liberty. 
He  declared  that  Washington  was  jealous  of  his  popularity,  and 
that  he  would  force  Washington  to  call  a  special  session  of  Con 
gress. 

There  were  those,  however,  who  would  not  stomach  the  French 
minister's  scandalous  antics.  Two  renegade  Americans  who  had 
accepted  French  commissions  were  indicted  by  a  grand  jury ;  an 
act  against  which  Genet  bitterly  remonstrated,  declaring  it  to 
be  something  which  his  pen  almost  refused  to  record.  Then 
the  administration  ordered  the  seizure  of  the  privateers  which 
he  was  fitting  out  in  our  ports,  and  Governor  Clinton  seized  the 
first  one,  at  New  York.  At  this  Genet  erupted  again,  with  a 
tirade  of  remonstrance  and  impertinent  abuse,  in  which  he  was 
vigorously  backed  by  the  so-called  French  party.  Jefferson  him 
self  was  in  private  disgusted.  He  tried  in  vain  to  restrain  Genet 
within  the  bounds  of  decency,  ignoring  the  fact  that  he  himself 
had  given  the  minister  his  chief  encouragement;  and  he  wrote 
to  Madison  that  the  appointment  of  Genet  was  the  most  calami 
tous  ever  made,  and  that  the  political  party  to  which  they  be 
longed  would  have  to  repudiate  him  if  it  did  not  wish  to  be 


180  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ruined.  But  a  host  of  Jefferson's  followers  continued  their  ac 
clamations  of  Genet  and  their  savage  abuse  and  denunciation  of 
Washington,  to  the  very  end. 

Amid  all  this  madness  and  menace  one  commanding  good 
arose  at  an  early  day,  at  the  hand  of  that  knight-errant  of  our 
early  statesmanship,  without  fear  and  without  reproach,  to  whom 
we  owe  more  than  to  any  other  man  of  that  era,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  Washington  and  Hamilton,  and  who  indeed  often 
seemed  to  vie  with  if  not  actually  to  surpass  them  in  the  varied 
splendor  and  priceless  value  of  his  services.  John  Jay  was  then 
the  first  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  a  notable  manner  he  demonstrated  at  an  early  date 
the  importance  and  power  of  the  national  judiciary.  A  federal 
grand  jury  met  at  Richmond,  Virginia,  on  May  22,  1793.  It 
was  only  four  days  after  Genet's  reception  by  Washington  at 
Philadelphia,  and  in  the  very  midst  of  the  mad  heyday  of  his 
privateering,  recruiting,  and  other  violations  of  law.  Jay  was 
the  presiding  justice  at  that  court,  and  mindful  of  what  was 
going  on  and  of  the  perils  to  the  republic  which  were  involved 
therein,  he  adverted  to  the  subject  in  his  charge  to  the  grand 
jury.  "The  laws  of  nations,"  he  said,  "make  part  of  the  laws 
of  this  and  of  every  other  civilized  nation.  They  consist  of  those 
rules  for  regulating  the  conduct  of  nations  toward  each  other 
which,  resulting  from  right  reason,  receive  their  obligations  from 
that  principle  and  from  general  assent  and  practice.  To  this 
head  also  belong  these  rules  or  laws  which,  by  agreement,  become 
established  between  nations.  .  .  .  We  are  now  a  nation,  and  it 
equally  becomes  us  to  perform  our  duties  and  to  assert  our 
rights.  .  .  .  The  United  States  are  in  a  state  of  neutrality  re 
lating  to  all  powers  at  war.  .  .  .  Therefore  they  who  commit, 
aid,  or  abet  hostilities  against  those  powers,  or  either  of  them, 
offend  against  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  ought  to  be 
punished." 

No  estimate  can  be  too  high  of  that  noble  and  epoch-making 
utterance.  At  least  equally  with  any  other  utterance  of  any 
other  man,  it  was  and  is  a  foundation  stone  of  American  foreign 
policy,  and  should  be  of  the  foreign  policy  of  every  nation. 
That  "it  equally  becomes  us  to  perform  our  duties  as  to  assert 
our  rights"  is  the  expression  of  absolute  perfection  in  interna- 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  181 

tional  ethics,  which,  it  if  could  be  practically  realized  among  the 
nations,  would  result  in  universal  and  perpetual  peace.  It  was, 
moreover,  the  first  enunciation  of  the  principle,  which  indeed 
was  recognized  in  the  Constitution  but  which  needed  Jay's  dic 
tum  to  give  it  vital  force,  that  international  law  and  treaties  are 
a  part  of  the  law  of  the  land  and  are  even  superior  to  mere  na 
tional,  state,  or  municipal  law.  Sir  Henry  Maine  has  said,  on 
this  point,  that  "international  has  precedence  of  both  federal 
and  municipal  law,  unless  in  the  exceptional  case  when  federal 
law  has  deliberately  departed  from  it";  and  he  calls  this  a  "dis 
tinctively  American  doctrine."  If  so,  America  may  well  be 
proud  of  the  distinction,  for  it  is  the  supreme  indication  of  scru 
pulous  honor  and  benevolence  in  foreign  policy. 

This  was  Jay^s  irrefragable  logic :  International  law  is  a  part 
of  the  common  law  of  all  civilized  nations.  International  law 
assumes  neutrality — that  is,  non-belligerency — to  exist  and  to  be 
practised  until  there  is  an  actual  declaration  of  war.  A  neutral 
must  give  no  aid  in  arms  or  men  or  vessels  or  otherwise,  to  either  1 
belligerent.  Therefore  any  one  giving  such  aid  prior  to  a  decla-  ' 
ration  of  war  violates  international  law  and  common  law,  and  is  a  * 
criminal.  This  was  epoch-making,  for  it  marked  a  flat  reversal 
of  our  former  policy  in  revolutionary  times.  For  our  revolu 
tionary  treaties  contemplated  partiality  toward  whichever  nation 
we  favored  in  a  strife.  If  that  policy  had  been  continued,  we 
should  incessantly  have  been  a  party  to  European  wars.  Jay's 
wiser  course  elected  that  we  should  identify  ourselves  with  the 
common  law  rather  than  with  the  common  quarrels  of  Euro 
pean  powers.  It  is  interesting  to  recall,  by  the  way,  that  this 
great  dictum  of  Jay's  was,  eighty  years  afterward,  embodied  al 
most  verbatim  in  the  Treaty  of  Washington.  A  subsequent  de 
cision  of  Jay's  was  to  the  effect  that  "no  foreign  power  can,  of 
right,  institute  or  erect  any  court  of  judicature  of  any  kind 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  but  only  such  as 
may  be  in  pursuance  of  treaties."  Therefore  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  French  consular  prize  courts  which  Genet  had  established 
was  unwarranted  and  void. 

It  is  mournful  to  record  that  rabid  partizanship  inspired  the 
denunciation  of  these  dicta,  and  of  Jay  for  making  them,  and 
succeeded  in  so  prejudicing  the  public  mind  against  them  that, 


182  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

while  a  man  was  indicted  by  the  grand  jury  for  violation  of 
neutrality,  it  was  impossible  to  find  in  Virginia  a  petit  jury 
that  would  convict  him.  Following  Jay's  declarations,  how 
ever,  the  Government  informed  Genet  that  he  must  send  his  pri 
vateers  out  of  American  territorial  waters ;  which  he  reluctantly 
did.  For  a  few  weeks  comparative  quiet  prevailed.  Genet, 
however,  was  incorrigible,  and  soon  committed  renewed  and  ag 
gravated  acts  of  lawless  folly. 

Early  in  July  it  became  known  in  Philadelphia  that  the  Brit 
ish  ship  Little  Sarah,  which  had  been  captured  by  a  French 
warship  and  brought  into  that  port  as  a  prize,  was  being  fitted 
out  as  a  privateer.  This  was,  of  course,  a  most  flagrant  breach 
of  neutrality,  which  Jefferson  and  other  friends  of  France  real 
ized  was  going  too  far.  They  remonstrated  with  Genet,  who 
passionately  and  defiantly  told  them  that  the  vessel  would  sail 
in  spite  of  them.  At  that  Governor  Mifflin  of  Pennsylvania,  al 
though  an  ardent  Gallican,  sent  a  company  of  militia  to  hold 
the  ship;  and  next  day  Jefferson  personally  got  from  Genet  a 
declaration  that  the  vessel  would  not  be  ready  to  sail  until  a 
certain  date.  Jefferson  strangely  regarded  this  as  a  promise 
that  the  vessel  would  not  sail,  and  accordingly  had  the  troops 
withdrawn.  Immediately  Genet  sent  the  vessel  from  Philadel 
phia  down  to  Chester,  where  it  would  be  much  easier  for  her  to 
slip  out  to  sea.  This  was  not  bad  faith,  for  Genet  had  explicitly 
declined  to  make  any  promise  of  detention  of  the  vessel.  But 
it  was  open  defiance  of  the  neutrality  proclamation  and  inter 
national  law.  When  it  was  made  known  to  the  cabinet,  Ham 
ilton  and  Knox  wanted  to  mount  a  battery  near  the  ship,  to  sink 
her  if  she  attempted  to  put  out  to  sea;  and  it  would  probably 
have  been  well  had  their  counsel  prevailed.  But  Jefferson  ex 
postulated  and  protested,  and  succeeded  in  postponing  all  action 
until  Washington  arrived  from  Mount  Vernon.  Then,  appar 
ently  not  wishing  to  meet  in  person  his  angry  chief,  Jefferson 
himself  hastened  away  home.  Washington  was  angry,  as  he 
had  cause  to  be,  and  he  wrote  to  Jefferson  a  vigorous  letter. 
"Is  the  minister  of  the  French  republic,"  he  demanded,  "to  set 
the  acts  of  this  Government  at  defiance  with  impunity?  What 
must  the  world  think  of  such  conduct,  and  of  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  in  submitting  to  it?"  He  reminded  Jeffer- 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  183 

son  that  this  was  a  matter  for  him,  as  secretary  of  state,  to  deal 
with,  and  he  demanded  an  immediate  reply. 

Jefferson's  reply  was  that  Genet  had  promised  him  that  the 
vessel  would  not  sail  until  the  President  had  considered  her  case 
and  had  reached  a  decision  about  her.  But  unluckily  for  the 
secretary  of  state,  at  almost  the  very  moment  when  he  made 
this  reply  to  Washington,  Genet  surreptitiously  sent  the  vessel 
to  sea.  If  he  had  made  any  such  promise  to  Jefferson,  he  broke 
it.  If  he  had  not,  Jefferson  deluded  himself  and  the  Govern 
ment.  In  either  case,  the  Government  was  humiliated  and  em 
barrassed,  and  Washington  was  justly  enraged.  He  had  to  sum 
mon  all  his  self-control  to  keep  from  summarily  ordering  Genet 
out  of  the  country,  and  perhaps,  too,  from  dismissing  Jefferson 
from  his  cabinet.  But  he  was  a  man  of  marvelous  restraint  and 
he  realized  that  so  long  as  the  country  was  unhappily  divided 
into  factions  over  the  matter,  it  was  desirable  to  keep  the  peace. 
Before  long,  he  felt  sure,  Genet  would  fill  the  cup  of  folly  and 
wrath  so  full  that  even  the  most  rabid  Gallicans  would  be  glad 
to  get  rid  of  him.  He  therefore  contented  himself  for  the  time 
with  taking  the  management  of  the  case  out  of  Jefferson 's  hands 
into  his  own.  He  wrote  Jefferson  a  severe  letter,  directing  that 
thereafter  all  correspondence  with  Genet  should  be  submitted  to 
himself  and  to  the  attorney-general;  and  he  stated  plainly  that 
Genet 's  official  conduct  would  have  to  undergo  ' ( very  serious  con 
sideration.  "  Within  ten  days  thereafter  the  cabinet  determined 
to  ask  France  to  recall  the  unacceptable  minister. 

But  at  the  very  time  when  this  was  being  decided  upon, 
though  all  unknown  to  him,  Genet  went  on  with  greater  inso 
lence  and  folly  than  ever  before.  The  French  consuls  at  various 
ports,  under  his  direction,  arrogated  to  themselves  powers  which 
grossly  infringed  upon  the  sovereignty  of  the  United  States. 
The  most  flagrant  case  was  at  Boston,  and  Washington,  on  learn 
ing  the  facts,  revoked  the  exequatur  of  the  offending  consul. 
At  this  Genet  seemed  to  go  quite  mad,  and  in  a  monumentally 
impudent  note  he  declared  that  the  President  had  overstepped 
his  authority,  and  that  he,  Genet,  would  appeal  against  him  to 
the  sovereign  State  of  Massachusetts !  It  was  also  made  known 
that  Genet  had  threatened  to  appeal  to  the  people  at  large 
against  the  President.  This  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  Some 


184  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  the  Galileans  approved  even  such  fantastic  extremes  of  their 
idol.  "Is  the  President/'  demanded  one  paper,  "a  consecrated 
character,  that  an  appeal  from  his  decision  must  be  considered 
criminal  ?  Or  are  the  people  in  such  a  state  of  degradation  that 
to  speak  of  consulting  them  is  an  offense  as  great  as  if  America 
groaned  under  a  dominion  equally  tyrannical  with  the  old  mon 
archy  of  France?"  With  such  utterances  extant,  reflecting 
the  sentiments  of  the  secretary  of  state,  America  seemed  upon 
the  brink  of  a  Convention  government,  with  a  march  of  Maenads 
upon  the  capital !  But  most  of  the  Gallicans  denied  that  Genet 
had  ever  made  such  a  threat,  and  demanded  a  retraction  of  the 
story.  They  realized  that  if  he  had  made  the  threat,  his  con 
duct  was  indefensible.  The  retraction,  however,  was  not  forth 
coming.  On  the  contrary,  John  Jay  and  Rufus  King  published 
a  statement  reasserting  the  truth  of  the  story  and  making  them 
selves  responsible  for  it.  This  turned  the  day  against  Genet, 
the  public  generally  believing  Jay  and  King.  The  last  support 
that  Genet  had  was  quickly  forfeited  by  himself,  when  he  wrote 
to  Washington  demanding  that  he  should  deny  the  story.  Wash 
ington  curtly  replied  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
did  not  consider  it  proper  or  material  to  make  such  a  denial, 
and  that  Mr.  Genet's  correspondence  should  be  addressed  to 
the  state  department!  Genet  blustered,  threatened  to  sue  Jay 
and  King  for  libel,  demanded  that  the  attorney-general  should 
prosecute  them,  and  lamented  that  America  was  no  longer  free. 
But  the  deed  was  done.  The  country  had  recovered  its  sanity 
and  was  now  united  in  support  of  the  president.  Genet's  re 
moval  was  speedily  effected,  and  in  February  following  a  new 
minister,  Mr.  Fauchet,  took  his  place.  When  Congress  met  the 
whole  case  was  reported  to  it,  and  it  approved  the  course  of  the 
administration,  whereupon  Genet  shrieked:  "Congress  has 
met!  Washington  has  unmasked  himself!  America  is  be 
fouled!"  But  it  was  a  curious  bit  of  fate's  proverbial  and  in 
this  case  beneficent  irony,  that  Genet  presently  was  indebted  to 
Washington  for  the  saving  of  his  life.  Robespierre  was  now  in 
power  in  France,  and  wished  to  make  Genet  share  the  tragic 
fate  of  the  other  Girondins,  so  he  gave  the  new  minister,  Fauchet, 
orders  to  arrest  him  and  send  him  back  to  France,  and  to  the 
guillotine.  But  Washington  intervened  and  refused  to  let  Genet 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  185 

be  extradited.  So  that  extraordinary  person  remained  in  the 
United  States  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Moreover,  he  married  a 
daughter  of  that  Governor  Clinton,  who  had  caused  the  seizure 
of  one  of  his  privateers;  and  with  her  lived  happily  forever 
after! 

The  practical  dismissal  of  Genet  had  two  personal  results, 
affecting  far  more  important  men  than  he.  One  was,  the  re 
tirement  of  Gouverneur  Morris  from  the  place  of  American  min 
ister  to  France.  This  was  done  at  the  request  or  practical  de 
mand  of  the  French  government,  made  immediately  after 
Genet's  removal,  and  ostensibly  on  that  account.  Morris  had  in 
deed  long  been  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  French  Revolutionists, 
of  whom  they  had  been  seeking  an  opportunity  to  get  rid.  He 
was  by  far  too  honest  for  those  patriots  of  the  itching  palm, 
and  too  high-minded.  He  maintained  a  self-respecting  dignity 
which  was  offensive  to  the  Sansculottes.  He  was  also  annoy- 
ingly  insistent  in  his  protests  against  French  seizures  of  Ameri 
can  shipping,  a  practice  which  was  then  in  full  blast;  but  his 
remonstrances  were  in  vain.  Nothing  but  a  navy  could  make 
them  effective,  as  was  demonstrated  a  few  years  later.  Of  course 
on  France's  request  Washington  had  no  alternative  but  to  recall 
that  particularly  loyal  and  efficient  minister;  an  incident  the 
more  regrettable  because  of  the  error  which  Washington  com 
mitted  in  appointing  Morris's  successor.  Washington  sought  to 
hold  himself,  like  a  constitutional  monarch,  above  and  apart 
from  party  politics.  He  belonged,  at  least  nominally  and  pro 
fessedly,  to  neither  the  Federalists  nor  the  Anti-Federalists,  to 
neither  the  Gallicans  nor  the  Anti-Gallicans.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  was  strongly  inclined  toward  the  Federalists  and  the 
Anti-Gallicans,  and  the  course  of  events  steadily  increased  that 
inclination.  When,  however,  he  had  to  appoint  Morris's  suc 
cessor  he  purposely  selected  a  pronounced  Anti-Federalist  and 
Gallican  and  follower  of  Jefferson,  to  wit,  James  Monroe.  This 
was  done  presumably  in  order  to  demonstrate  his  own  impar 
tiality  between  the  two  parties.  It  was,  however,  for  that  very 
reason  an  error,  because  it  set  the  example  of  selecting  a  man 
for  an  important  foreign  post  because  of  considerations  pertain 
ing  to  domestic  politics.  If  foreign  influences  should  not  be  per 
mitted  to  affect  domestic  affairs,  neither  should  domestic  politics 


186  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

be  injected  into  our  foreign  diplomacy.  The  act  was  an  error, 
too,  because  Monroe  proved  himself  to  be  conspicuously  unfitted 
for  the  place.  He  became  enamored  of  the  revolution,  even  of 
its  excesses,  and  comported  himself  in  a  most  fantastic  manner. 
He  thus  made  himself  as  popular  as  his  predecessor  had  been 
unpopular.  Unfortunately  he  partly  neglected  and  partly  mis 
managed  the  business  of  the  nation  to  such  a  degree  that  Wash 
ington  was  presently  compelled  to  recall  him.  His  chief  errors 
were,  first,  in  flamboyantly  addressing  himself  to  the  whole 
French  people  through  the  Convention,  instead  of  to  the  com 
mittee  of  public  safety,  in  which  he  emulated  the  error  of  Genet 
in  America;  second,  in  expressing  sentiments  of  sympathy  and 
moral  alliance  with  France  far  beyond  the  limits  of  diplomatic 
neutrality;  and  third,  in  deliberately  working  against  his  col 
league,  the  American  minister  to  Great  Britain.  He  was  re 
called  in  August,  1796,  and  was  succeeded  by  Charles  Cotesworth 
Pinckney. 

The  other  result  of  Genet's  recall,  if  indeed  not  of  his  whole 
career  in  this  country,  was  Jefferson's  resignation  of  the  office 
of  secretary  of  state.  This  was  irrevocably  announced  by  Jeffer 
son  in  July,  1793,  at  the  climax  of  the  Genet  episode,  but  at  the 
special  urging  of  Washington  he  remained  in  office  until  the  end 
of  the  year;  Washington  strongly  representing  to  him  that  he 
ought  not  to  leave  office  while  important  matters  which  he  had 
in  hand  were  still  unsettled.  Jefferson's  pretext  for  resigning 
was  a  desire  for  rest  and  relief  from  official  cares;  which  was 
doubtless  true.  He  was  particularly  tired  of  the  incessant  con 
flict  which  he  had  been  waging  with  Hamilton,  and  in  which 
he  usually  got  the  worse.  He  felt  personally  humiliated  by  the 
Genet  episode.  And  he  felt,  undoubtedly,  that  he  was  com 
manding  steadily  less  and  less  of  the  confidence  of  Washing 
ton.  The  two  parted  good  friends,  however,  and  with  sincere 
expressions  of  Washington's  appreciation  of  the  really  excellent 
work  which  Jefferson  had  done.  He  was  succeeded  by  Edmund 
Randolph,  who  had  been  attorney-general. 

While  these  things  were  going  on  in  our  relations  with  France, 
our  relations  with  Great  Britain'  were  almost  equally  unsatis 
factory.  The  peace  treaty  of  1783,  after  all  these  years,  was 
still  unfulfilled.  The  British  still  held  a  chain  of  forts  along 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  187 

the  American  frontier  on  American  soil.  Adams  had  come  home 
with  the  humiliating  reminder  ringing  in  his  ears  that  until  the 
United  States  paid  its  debts  and  otherwise  fulfilled  its  obliga 
tions  it  would  not  be  worth  while  for  it  to  send  another  min 
ister  to  England.  As  soon  as  the  war  began  between  France 
and  Great  Britain,  the  British  government  showed  itself  equally 
with  that  of  France  regardless  of  American  neutrality.  Like 
France,  Great  Britain  purposed  to  use  America  for  her  own 
advantage,  or  to  sacrifice  American  interests  whenever  it  would 
be  to  her  profit  so  to  do.  The  rise  of  the  Gallican  party  here, 
too,  and  the  extravagant  expressions  of  sympathy  with  France, 
some  of  them  made  by  our  secretary  of  state,  naturally  gave 
much  offense,  particularly  as  there  were  no  similar  counter- 
demonstrations  in  favor  of  Great  Britain.  The  opponents  of 
the  Gallican  party  were  Anti-Gallicans  far  more  than  they  were 
Pro-Anglicans.  British  action  was  directed,  then,  chiefly 
against  American  commerce,  and  in  that  direction  it  was  dis 
astrous  to  us. 

France  began  with  a  decree  of  the  National  Convention  on 
May  9,  1793,  authorizing  French  warships  and  privateers  to  seize 
and  to  take  to  France  all  merchant  vessels  carrying  provisions 
which  were  neutral  property  and  bound  for  a  British  port. 
This  would  have  meant  seizure  of  many  American  vessels.  But 
a  supplementary  decree  on  May  23  specially  exempted  American 
commerce,  doubtless  in  the  expectation  of  an  American  alliance. 
The  reply  of  the  British  government  was  a  similar  order,  signed 
on  June  8,  with,  of  course,  no  exception  in  favor  of  America. 
The  theory  of  these  orders  was  that  food  was  contraband  of  war. 
The  neutral  cargoes  were  not,  however,  to  be  confiscated,  but 
were  to  be  purchased  by  the  Government  making  the  seizure,  for 
its  own  uses ;  the  object  being  to  prevent  the  supplies  from  get 
ting  to  the  enemy.  Another  British  order,  in  November,  ex 
tended  the  scope  of  seizures  to  vessels  bound  for  any  French  col 
ony;  and  a  third,  in  January  following,  restricted  it  to  the 
French  West  Indies,  in  which,  of  course,  American  commerce 
was  very  largely  concerned.  Although  this  last  order  was  in 
tended  to  mitigate  the  hardships  of  the  situation  to  American 
commerce,  and  although  it  did  in  fact  allay  much  American  re 
sentment  and  probably  obviated  some  harsh  retaliatory  measures. 


188  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

the  commerce  of  the  United  States  suffered  greatly,  and  the 
American  government  had  ground  for  vigorous  remonstrances; 
which  however  were  long  in  vain.  Hundreds  of  American  ships 
were  seized,  and  their  crews  and  passengers  were  subjected  to 
insult,  imprisonment,  and  other  indignities.  Owners  dared  no 
longer  to  send  out  ships,  commerce  was  paralyzed,  and  business 
in  the  United  States  suffered  grave  depression. 

At  this  time,  as  one  of  his  last  acts  as  secretary  of  state,  Jeffer 
son  presented  a  report  which  he  had  been  asked  by  Congress 
away  back  in  1791  to  prepare,  but  which  he  had  neglected.  It 
was  a  report  upon  our  foreign  commerce  and  the  means  of  regu 
lating  and  protecting  it.  Its  foundation  was  the  economic  doc 
trine  of  free  trade,  upon  which  he  based  the  theory  of  equal  trade 
privileges  for  all  nations;  but  with  retaliatory  restrictions  and 
penalties  upon  the  trade  of  any  nation  which  discriminated 
against  our  own.  This  report  was  laid  before  Congress  in  Decem 
ber,  1793,  and,  on  January  3  following,  James  Madison,  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  offered  a  series  of  seven  resolutions 
for  putting  Jefferson's  recommendations  into  effect.  The  pur 
pose  was  to  bring  Great  Britain  to  terms.  Her  trade  would 
suffer  the  same  restrictions  which  her  orders  in  council  had 
practically  placed  upon  ours.  France,  it  was  thought,  would 
quickly  make  a  commercial  treaty  with  us,  and  Great  Britain 
would  have  to  do  the  same  or  else  lose  her  American  trade, 
which  was  of  much  value  to  her.  This  policy  was,  however, 
vigorously  and  cogently  opposed  by  the  representatives  of  Ameri 
can  commerce,  who  pointed  out  that  the  effects  would  be  more 
harmful  to  America  than  to  England.  About  seven  eighths  of 
our  imports  came  from  England,  and  we  could  not  so  advan 
tageously  get  them  elsewhere.  England  alone  could  furnish  the 
capital  needed  for  the  promotion  of  American  commerce.  To 
forbid  our  merchants  to  trade  with  England,  therefore,  and  to 
compel  them  to  turn  to  other  markets,  would  be  disastrous. 
These  representations  had  so  much  weight  that  action  upon 
Madison's  resolutions  were  postponed. 

Meantime,  direct  diplomatic  relations  had  been  established  by 
the  sending  hither,  in  the  fall  of  1791,  of  George  Hammond  as 
the  first  British  minister  to  the  United  States,  and  the  sending,  a 
few  months  later,  of  Thomas  Pinckney  to  be  the  second  American 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  189 

minister  to  Great  Britain.  It  was  fitting  that  the  British  min 
ister  should  come  hither  first,  because  of  the  former  failure  of 
that  Government  to  send  a  minister  in  response  to  such  action 
by  this  country.  Pinckney  was  a  particularly  loyal,  able,  and 
resolute  man.  Hammond,  who  had  been  secretary  of  the  Brit 
ish  Peace  Commission  at  Paris  in  1783  and  afterward  secretary 
of  legation  at  Madrid,  was  expert  but  undiplomatic  in  tempera 
ment,  and  his  natural  obstinacy  and  arrogance  were  increased  by 
his  resentment  at  the  reception  which  was  given  to  Genet.  He 
doubtless  influenced  his  Government  to  proceed  harshly  and  to 
issue  the  offensive  orders  in  council.  The  work  of  these  minis 
ters,  therefore,  accomplished  little  or  nothing  toward  a  settle 
ment  of  the  issues  between  the  two  countries.  On  the  contrary, 
the  hardships  imposed  upon  American  commerce  by  the  British 
navy,  and  an  unauthorized  but  mischievous  speech  of  Lord 
Dorchester's  at  Quebec  in  which  he  told  the  Indians  that  they 
would  soon  have  an  opportunity  of  going  upon  the  warpath 
against  the  United  States,  brought  relations  between  the  nations 
dangerously  near  to  the  breaking  point. 

America  was  contending  for  Frederick  the  Great's  principle, 
which  Franklin  had  embodied  in  our  treaty  with  Prussia,  "free 
ships  make  free  goods,"  a  principle  then  far  in  advance  of  the 
times.  A  recent  English  writer  of  high  authority,  Mr.  W.  E. 
Hall,  in  his  fine  treatise  on  international  law,  remarks  upon  this 
attitude  of  Washington's  administration:  "The  policy  of  the 
United  States  in  1793  constitutes  an  epoch  in  the  development 
of  the  usages  of  neutrality.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was 
intended  and  believed  to  give  effect  to  the  obligations  then  in 
cumbent  upon  neutrals.  But  it  represented  by  far  the  most 
advanced  existing  opinions  as  to  what  these  obligations  were, 
and  in  some  points  it  even  went  further  than  authoritative  in 
ternational  custom  has  up  to  the  present  time  advanced.  In  the 
main,  however,  it  is  identical  with  the  standard  of  conduct  which 
is  now  adopted  by  the  community  of  nations."  That  is  a  high 
but  well-deserved  tribute,  that  America  in  1783  set  up  a  standard 
of  international  ethics  more  than  a  century  in  advance  of  the 
world  at  large,  to  which,  however,  all  nations  have  since  approxi 
mated.  England,  on  the  other  hand,  was  at  that  time  acting 
upon  the  fine  old  medieval  theory  that  there  could  be  no  real 


190  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

neutrality,  but  that  all  who  were  not  for  her  must  be  against 
her  and  were  thus  to  be  treated  as  enemies.  Between  these 
two  policies  there  could  be  no  agreement,  and  so  day  by  day  the 
two  countries  drifted  apart  and  toward  war.  A  demand  was 
arising  in  America  for  reprisals  against  England,  which,  merely 
in  the  form  of  nonintercourse,  would  inevitably  mean  war. 
Now,  George  Washington  was  never  a  man  who  dreaded  fighting. 
But  he  was  never,  either,  a  rash  or  imprudent  man.  He  real 
ized  that  America  was  in  no  condition  for  fighting  England  at 
that  time.  If  we  had  had  an  adequate  navy,  we  should  have 
been  more  ready  for  war.  Indeed,  a  navy  would  probably  have 
so  protected  our  commerce  as  to  have  permitted  no  occasion  for 
war.  So  he  pursued  the  prudent  policy  of  seeking  adjustment 
of  affairs  by  diplomatic  means.  He  determined  to  send  another 
minister  to  England,  for  the  express  purpose  of  negotiating  a 
treaty  with  that  Government  which  should  settle  present  troubles 
as  well  as  the  long-delayed  provisions  of  the  treaty  of  1783. 

On  April  7,  1794,  a  resolution  was  introduced  into  the  House 
ofRepresentatives,  ordering  an  embargo  upon  British  commerce 
until  such  time  as  the  British  should  surrender  the  frontier  forts 
and  pay  certain  heavy  indemnities.  The  enactment  of  this 
would  doubtless  have  meant  war.  The  proposal  passed  the 
House,  however,  and  was  defeated  in  the  Senate  only  by  the  cast 
ing  of  the  vote  of  the  vice-president,  the  Senate  voting  half  for 
it  and  half  against  it.  This  menacing  action  moved  Washing 
ton  to  send  the  treaty-seeking  minister  to  England  without  de 
lay.  He  wished  to  send  Hamilton,  who  was  of  all  men  perhaps 
best  fitted  for  it.  But  it  was  made  plain  to  him  that  ratifica 
tion  of  his  appointment  would  be  bitterly  opposed  in  the  Senate 
by  the  Gallican  party,  and  it  was  doubtful  if  a  two-thirds  vote 
could  be  secured  for  him.  Accordingly,  on  Hamilton's  sugges 
tion,  Washington  appointed  Jay  instead,  believing  that  his  high 
position  as  chief  justice  would  lend  weight  and  authority  to  the 
mission,  and  realizing,  too,  Jay's  transcendent  abilities  and  val 
uable  experience.  There  was  strong  opposition  to  Jay  in  the 
Senate,  based  largely  upon  some  remarks  of  his  while  he  was 
secretary  for  foreign  affairs  under  the  old  Confederation,  and 
partly  upon  the  entirely  logical  ground  that  as  chief  justice — for 
he  still  held  that  ofiice — he  might  be  called  upon  to  pass  ju- 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  191 

dicially  upon  his  own  treaty ;  but  he  was  finally  confirmed,  by  a 
vote  of  eighteen  to  eight.  The  Gallicans  throughout  the  coun 
try,  however,  publicly  denounced  both  him  and  his  mission  up 
to  the  very  hour  of  his  departure. 

Jay  was  confirmed  on  April  19,  and  on  May  6  he  received  his 
instructions,  which  had  been  prepared  by  Randolph  and  which 
covered  five  points.  He  was  to  ask  compensation  for  the  injuries 
which  had  been  done  to  American  commerce.  He  was  to  seek 
adjustment  of  the  unsettled  matters  under  the  treaty  of  1783, 
If  these  two  points  were  gained,  he  was  to  try  to  negotiate  a 
general  commercial  treaty,  on  lines  which  were  indicated;  look 
ing  chiefly  to  an  enlargement  of  commercial  privileges  and  the 
protection  of  neutral  property  at  sea.  He  was  to  make  over 
tures  to  the  ministers  of  Russia,  Denmark,  and  Sweden,  if  nec 
essary,  for  the  forming  of  an  alliance  with  them  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  neutral  rights.  And  he  was  to  make  no  treaty  that 
would  be  inconsistent  with  our  existing  treaty  obligations  to 
France.  Jay  at  once  proceeded  to  London,  where  our  resident 
minister,  Pinckney,  cordially  cooperated  with  him,  although  he 
probably  could  not  help  feeling  that  the  appointment  of  Jay 
was  in  some  degree  a  reflection  upon  him,  or  at  least  a  deroga 
tion  of  his  importance.  Jay  was  cordially  received  by  Lord 
Grenville,  and  the  negotiations  proceeded  agreeably  and  auspi 
ciously.  Concessions  were  made  on  both  sides,  and  a  treaty  was 
made  which  Jay  and  Grenville  signed  on  November  19.  This 
famous  and  greatly  criticised  instrument  provided  for  the 
evacuation  of  the  frontier  forts  by  June  1,  1796.  England  . 
was  not  required  to  pay  for  the  Negro  slaves  wfio  had  been 
taken  out  of  the  country.  Citizens  of  one  country  were  to  be 
permitted  to  continue  in  possession  of  lands  then  held  by  them 
in  the  other  country,  and  to  dispose  of  them  at  will.  Neither 
public  nor  private  debts  were  thereafter  to  be  sequestered  in 
peace  or  war.  '  Certain  restrictions  were  imposed  upon  Amen-  *- 
can  commerce  in  the  British  West  Indies,  and  also  in  the  East 
Indies.  ;  Naval  stores  and  in  some  cases  provisions  were  made  c, 
contraband  of  war,  but  provisions  when  seized  were  to  be  paid 
for.  Commanders  of  privateers  were  to  be  put  under  bonds  to 
observe  the  treaty.  Foreign  privateers  were  not  to  be  permitted 
to  use  the  ports  of  one  nation  against  the  other,  either  for  fitting 


\ 
192  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

and  arming  or  for  refuge.  Each  country  was  to  guard  the  neu 
trality  of  its  own  territorial  waters.  And,  finally,  there  was  to 
be  extradition  for  the  crimes  of  murder  and  forgery.  This  was 
the  first  extradition  treaty  ever  made  by  the  United  States. 

If  there  had  been  a  storm  of  denunciation  of  Jay  and  his  mis 
sion  before  he  sailed  for  England,  there  was  a  tempest  of  it  when 
the  terms  of  this  treaty  became  known.  There  came  on  what 
John  Quincy  Adams  described  as  "the  severest  trial  which  the 
character  of  Washington  and  the  fortunes  of  our  country  have 
ever  passed  through.  No  period  of  the  War  of  Independence, 
no  other  emergency  of  our  history  since  its  close,  not  even  the  or 
deal  of  establishing  the  Constitution,  .  .  .  has  convulsed  to  its 
inmost  fibers  the  political  association  of  the  North  American 
people  with  such  excruciating  agonies  as  the  consummation  and 
fulfilment  of  this  great  national  composition  of  the  conflicting 
rights,  interests,  and  pretensions  of  this  country  and  Great 
Britain. ' '  Jay  was  hanged  and  burned  in  effigy  in  many  places, 
North  and  South.  Hamilton,  attempting  to  speak  publicly  in 
behalf  of  the  treaty  in  New  York  City,  was  mobbed,  stoned,  and 
narrowly  escaped  death  at  the  hands  of  the  infuriated  populace. 
The  British  minister's  house  was  threatened  with  sacking. 

The  grounds  for  thus  raging  against  the  treaty  were  several, 
though  none  seemed  adequate  for  such  extravagant  demonstra 
tions  of  hostility.  It  was  objected  that  the  date  of  evacuation 
of  the  forts  was  too  long  postponed,  and  that  the  surrender  of 
the  Negroes  was  unjust.  These  were,  however,  specific  details. 
More  important  for  the  present  purpose  were  the  objections  on 
grounds  of  general  principle.  It  was  thus  contended  that  the 
prohibition  of  the  confiscation  of  debts  was  injurious,  as  the 
United  States  might  need  to  resort  to  that  practice,  or  to  the 
menace  of  it,  for  her  own  protection;  an  argument  which  no 
reputable  statesman  would  venture  to  put  forward  at  this  time. 
It  was  urged  that  to  permit  aliens  to  own  and  bequeath  land  in 
this  country  would  encourage  mischief ;  another  contention  which 
time  has  repudiated  and  condemned.  The  limitations  of  trade 
with  the  Indies  would  be  a  hardship,  while  the  inclusion  of  pro 
visions  among  contraband  of  war  would  ruin  American  com 
merce. 

A  few  specific  objections  were  doubtless  well  founded.    Jay 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  193 

himself  realized  very  keenly  the  unsatisfactory  nature  of  some 
of  the  provisions.  He  did  not  attempt,  in  his  letter  to  Randolph 
transmitting  the  treaty,  to  justify  them  per  se.  His  chief  argu 
ment  in  support,  or  perhaps  we  should  say  in  defense,  of  the 
treaty,  was  that  it  was  the  best  that  could  be  made  at  that  time, 
and  that  it  would  be  much  better  than  none  at  all ;  both  of  which 
propositions  were  entirely  true.  Moreover,  the  objectionable 
clause  about  West  India  trade  was  to  last  for  only  two  years,  the 
clause  about  contraband  did  not  abandon  the  position  thitherto 
taken  by  the  United  States,  and  the  privateering  clauses  were 
identical  with  those  in  treaties  thitherto  made  between  England, 
France,  and  Holland.  It  may  be  added  that  Jay  had  endeav 
ored  to  secure  the  insertion  of  a  clause  abolishing  privateering 
altogether,  and  thus  anticipating  the  action  of  the  powers  at 
Paris  sixty  years  later,  but  Grenville  was  not  prepared  for  so 
radical  a  step.  In  spite  of  violent  opposition,  the  arguments 
of  Jay,  supported  by  those  of  Hamilton,  won  the  day.  The 
treaty  was  ratified  by  the  Senate  by  a  bare  two-thirds  vote,  of 
twenty  to  ten.  The  clause  relating  to  West  India  commerce 
was  omitted,  and  to  this  omission  Great  Britain  assented. 

This  treaty  gave  occasion  for  another  deplorable  manifestation 
of  the  power  of  foreign  intrigue  in  American  politics.  A  Brit 
ish  ship  had  captured  some  time  before  a  letter  from  the  French 
minister  to  America,  Fauchet,  to  his  Government,  speaking  of 
certain  "precious  confessions"  which  Randolph,  our  secretary 
of  state,  had  made  to  him.  This  was  forwarded  to  Hammond, 
the  British  minister  at  Philadelphia,  for  use  against  Randolph, 
to  compel  him  either  to  mend  his  ways  or  to  retire  from  the 
cabinet.  The  construction  put  upon  that  phrase  was  that  Ran 
dolph  had  been  involved  in  some  corrupt  intrigue  with  Fauchet 
or  some  one  else.  Hammond  had  the  matter  brought  to  Wash 
ington's  attention,  and  the  President  gave  the  letter  to  Randolph 
in  a  cabinet  meeting  and  asked  him  to  read  it.  Randolph  asked 
for  time  in  which  to  explain  it,  but  a  few  hours  later  tendered 
his  resignation  as  secretary  of  state  and  was  succeeded  in  that 
office  by  Timothy  Pickering.  Fauchet  afterward  gave  a  some 
what  halting  explanation  of  his  own  words,  which  seemed  to  ac 
quit  Randolph  of  the  imputation  of  pecuniary  corruption, 
though  there  remained  no  doubt  that  he  had  very  indiscreetly 

VOL.    1—13 


194  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

lent  himself  to  the  French  side  in  the  pending  controversies,  and 
had  shown  himself  unfit  to  be  secretary  of  state. 

There  then  arose  for  the  first  time  the  important  question 
whether  the  House  of  Representatives  was  bound  to  provide  the 
fiscal  means  for  putting  the  treaty  into  effect.  The  treaty  was 
made  by  the  executive,  by  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate. 
The  House  of  Representatives  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  But 
some  of  its  provisions  could  not  be  carried  out  without  appro 
priations  of  public  money,  and  those  appropriations  must,  under 
the  constitution,  originate  in  the  House.  Was  the  House  under 
any  constitutional  or  legal  compulsion  to  vote  them  ?  The  House 
took  the  ground  that  it  was  not  thus  obligated,  but  was  free  to  act 
according  to  its  own  discretion.  Accordingly,  in  order  to  secure 
a  basis  on  which  to  make  its  judgment  of  the  treaty  and  to  de 
termine  whether  or  not  to  provide  for  its  execution,  the  House 
requested  the  President  to  send  to  it  all  the  papers  relative  to 
the  negotiations  of  the  treaty.  This  would  obviously  have  been 
tantamount  to  making  the  House  a  part  of  the  treaty-making  or 
at  least  the  treaty-reviewing  power,  and  the  President  very  prop 
erly  declined  to  comply  with  the  request.  Thereupon  ensued  a 
protracted  and  animated  debate,  lasting  for  three  weeks  and  cov 
ering  the  general  relations  of  Congress  to  the  treaty-making 
power.  Madison,  Gallatin,  and  others  vigorously  opposed  the 
President's  attitude  and  insisted  that  he  must  obey  the  mandate 
of  the  House.  The  deciding  speech  in  favor  of  the  treaty  was 
made  by  Fisher  Ames,  who  was  an  invalid  and  forbidden  by  his 
physician  to  speak  at  all,  but  who  made  on  this  matter  perhaps 
the  greatest  address  of  his  life.  Finally  three  votes  were  taken. 
The  first  and  second,  on  the  question  of  approving  the  treaty, 
were  tied  and  were  decided  for  the  treaty  by  the  vote  of  the 
speaker,  Jonathan  Dayton  of  New  Jersey.  The  third,  directing 
the  House  to  carry  the  treaty  into  effect,  was  carried,  because  of  a 
few  absences,  by  fifty-one  to  forty-eight.  There  followed  a  popu 
lar  storm  of  wrath  against  Jay,  and  even  against  Washington 
himself,  but  the  treaty  stood.  It  saved  us  from  war  with  Eng 
land,  for  which  we  were  unprepared,  and  it  settled  a  number  of 
vexatious  controversies  which  had  already  dragged  on  too  long. 

While  there  was  legitimate  ground  for  dissatisfaction  with 
some  provisions  of  the  treaty,  there  was  no  possible  justification 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  195 

for  the  wild  and  savage  brutalities  of  the  campaign  against  it, 
which  would  have  been  more  befitting  the  Reign  of  Terror  in  the 
days  of  Marat  and  Robespierre  than  the  United  States  under 
George  Washington.  The  chief  reasons  for  these  monstrous  out 
breaks  were  two.  One  was  the  unfortunate  prevalence  of  the 
spirit  of  faction  which  then  rose  higher  than  ever  before  in  our 
history,  which  was  ready  to  sacrifice  national  interest  to  party 
advantage,  and  which  was  incited  and  intensified  by  foreign 
intrigues,  suggestions,  and  subsidies — for  under  Jefferson  and 
Randolph  a  clerk  in  the  state  department  was  regularly  subsi 
dized  by  France  to  write  and  publish  lampoons  and  libels  upon 
Washington  himself.  The  other  reason  was  that  the  American 
people  had  not  yet  come  to  the  point  of  thinking  diplomatically. 
They  had  not  yet  got  rid  of  the  habit  of  either  taking  their  for- 
eign  policy  readymade  from  some  European  power  or  else  doing 
as  they  pleased  without  regard  to  the  wishes  or  even  the  rights 
of  others.  They  had  still  to  learn  the  great  lesson  that  there 
are  two  sides  to  every  international  dispute,  that  generally  diplo 
matic  dealings  are  processes  of  give  and  take,  and  that  a  treaty  is 
a  mutual  contract  between  two  equal  powers  in  which  each  party 
must  receive  a  quid  pro  quo.  It  was  our  first  essay  in  important 
treaty-making,  at  least  of  what  we  may  call  a  business  treaty, 
and  it  was  not  surprising  that  we  showed  ourselves  unused  to 
the  process.  Looking  back  at  it  from  this  distance,  it  is  impossi 
ble  to  deny  that  with  all  its  faults  the  treaty  was  beneficent  and 
that  the  negotiation  of  it  was  by  no  means  the  least  of  Jay 's  great 
services  to  the  young  republic. 

As  already  observed,  Monroe,  our  minister  at  Paris,  had  tried 
to  embarrass  and  defeat  Jay  in  his  negotiations  of  this  treaty  at 
London,  and  when  he  learned  that  in  spite  of  him  Jay  had  suc 
ceeded,  he  denounced  the  treaty  in  violent  terms.  In  September, 
1795,  following  the  ratification  and  execution  of  the  treaty,  Mr. 
Pickering,  who  had  then  become  secretary  of  state,  sent  to  Mon 
roe  a  letter  designed  chiefly  for  the  French  government,  in 
which  he  defended  the  treaty,  and  especially  argued  that  it  did 
not  proceed  from  any  predilection  for  Great  Britain — which  was 
true  enough — and  that  it  was  not  meant  to  be  and  would  not 
prove  to  be  inimical  or  detrimental  to  France.  In  this  latter 
contention  Pickering  was  probably  sincere.  Nevertheless  the 


196  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

treaty  was  generally  regarded,  both  here  and  in  Europe,  as  a 
serious  blow  to  France.  The  French  government  so  regarded 
it,  and,  partly  for  that  reason  and  partly  out  of  resentment  at 
the  recalling  of  Monroe,  practically  broke  off  diplomatic  rela 
tions  with  this  country.  In  his  farewell  address  to  Monroe  the 
President  of  the  French  Directory  uttered  studied  insults  to  the 
United  States,  speaking  of  "the  condescension  of  the  American 
government  to  the  wishes  of  its  ancient  tyrants";  and  Monroe 
was  warned  that  no  successor  to  him  would  be  received  until  the 
United  States  made  reparation  for  the  injuries  which  it  was 
charged  with  having  inflicted  upon  France.  In  September, 
Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney  was  accredited  as  minister  to, 
France,  but,  true  to  its  threat,  the  Government  refused  to  re 
ceive  him,  it  grossly  insulted  him,  placed  him  under  police  sur 
veillance  as  a  suspicious  character,  and  finally  compelled  him  to 
quit  the  country  and  retire  to  Holland.  In  October,  P.  A.  Adet, 
the  French  minister  to  America,  was  recalled.  Then  the  French 
government  entered  upon  a  systematic  course  of  aggressions 
against  America.  Decrees  were  issued,  directly  intended  to 
harass  and  destroy  American  commerce.  Neutral  ships  carrying 
an  enemy's  property  were  to  be  seized.  An  enemy's  goods  on  a 
neutral  ship  were  to  be  confiscated.  The  American  principle 
of  "free  ships,  free  goods,"  was  scouted.  The  treaty  of  1778  be 
tween  France  and  America  was  arbitrarily  treated  as  if  modified 
so  as  to  conform  with  the  French  interpretation  of  Jay's  treaty 
with  England;  quite  regardless  of  the  fundamental  fact  that  a 
treaty  is  a  contract  between  two  parties  and  can  be  modified 
only  with  the  consent  of  both.  The  French  government  was  ob 
viously  doing  its  utmost  to  provoke  war. 

Meantime  we  had  also  been  having  trouble  with  Spain.  The 
Congress  of  the  Confederation  had  abandoned  negotiations  with 
that  country  in  despair  and  had  remitted  the  whole  tangled  web 
to  the  new  Government  under  the  Constitution.  Not  the  least 
ominous  feature  of  the  case  was  the  rising  discontent  and  dis 
loyalty  in  the  Southwest,  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee;  feelings 
which  were  partly  inspired  by  a  real  fear  that  the  interests  of 
that  region  would  be  sacrificed  by  the  Eastern  States  in  abandon 
ment  of  the  right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  and  partly  by  the 
influence  of  Spanish  gold.  Wilkinson,  Sevier,  O'Fallon,  McGil- 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  197 

livray,  and  other  unhanged  traitors  and  scoundrels,  with  pockets 
filled  with  Spanish  subsidies,  were  busy  organizing  secession,  in 
citing  the  Indians  to  war,  and  in  general  committing  all  possible 
deviltry.  In  1790,  Tennessee  was  ceded  by  North  Carolina  to 
the  Federal  Government,  and  two  years  later  Kentucky  was  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union  as  a  new  State,  and  these  acts  allayed  the 
trouble  in  a  measure. 

In  1791,  the  Spanish  government  intimated  to  Jefferson  that 
it  was  desirous  of  renewing  negotiations  for  a  settlement,  and 
Jefferson  accordingly  sent  Short,  who  was  our  charge  d'affaires 
in  France,  to  proceed  to  Madrid  and  join  Carmichael,  our  charge 
there,  to  form  a  commission  for  the  negotiation  of  a  treaty,  which 
was  to  deal  with  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  River,  the  Ya- 
zoo  lands  and  the  Florida  boundary,  and  the  return  of  fugitives. 
The  Spanish  government  at  first  delayed  to  act,  and  then  ap 
pointed  as  its  negotiator  Diego  de  Gardoqui,  who  had  conducted 
the  futile  negotiations  with  Jay,  years  before.  This  appoint 
ment  defeated  the  negotiations  in  advance.  Gardoqui  arro 
gantly  declared  that  he  was  ready  to  make  a  treaty  on  the  lines 
of  that  proposed  in  1786  and  no  others.  For  a  year  the  two 
parties  were  in  a  deadlock,  and  then  Carmichael  became  dis 
gusted,  abandoned  the  task,  and  came  home. 

It  was  during  these  negotiations  that  Genet  came  to  the  United 
States.  As  France  was  then  at  war  with  Spain,  a  part  of  his 
scheme  was  to  organize  here  expeditions  for  the  invasion  and  con 
quest  of  Florida  and  Louisiana.  Three  expeditions  were 
planned  by  him  and  several  thousand  men  were  recruited.  Two 
of  them  collapsed  as  soon  as  Genet  was  repudiated  by  his  Gov 
ernment,  but  the  third  gave  promise  of  achievement.  It  was  led 
by  George  Rogers  Clark,  the  hero  of  our  revolutionary  conquest 
of  the  Northwest.  He  had  offered  his  services  to  Genet  for  an 
attack  upon  New  Orleans,  and  had  been  commissioned  by  him 
an  officer  of  the  French  army.  A  really  formidable  movement 
was  under  way,  when  the  arrival  of  a  new  French  minister  in 
1794  changed  the  policy  and  halted  operations. 

Washington  realized  by  this  time,  however,  how  strong  were 
the  feelings  of  the  West  and  what  danger  there  was  of  alienating 
that  region  from  the  Union,  and  he  accordingly  resolved  upon 
more  strenuous  diplomacy.  He  shifted  the  able  and  resolute 


198  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Thomas  Pinckney  from  London  to  Madrid  as  our  minister,  and 
instructed  him  to  make  if  possible  a  treaty  covering  merely  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Florida  boundary.  Pinck 
ney  had  to  deal  at  Madrid  with  the  notorious  Godoy,  "The 
Prince  of  the  Peace/'  who  had  just  made  peace  with  France  and 
who  was  the  real  ruler  of  Spain.  At  first  all  went  well.  Then 
Godoy  began  to  procrastinate  and  delay  negotiations  in  every 
possible  manner.  For  a  year  matters  were  at  a  standstill.  Then 
one  day  Pinckney  gave  warning  that  if  negotiations  were  not  at 
once  resumed  and  pushed  to  a  conclusion,  he  would  demand  his 
passports.  This  brought  Godoy  to  terms,  and  in  October,  1795, 
the  treaty  was  made.  Under  it  the  boundary  of  West  Florida 
was  fixed  at  the  thirty-first  parallel  of  latitude,  according  to  the 
American  contention;  and  the  United  States  was  permitted  to 
navigate  the  Mississippi  freely,  to  the  Gulf,  and  to  use  New  Or 
leans  as  a  port  of  deposit  and  transfer  from  river  to  sea-going 
craft.  In  brief,  Pinckney  gained  all  that  had  been  asked  by 
this  country.  As  a  result  incipient  treason  and  secession  in  the 
Southwest  were  quickly  snuffed  out.  Washington  had  written 
in  1790  that  the  United  States  wanted  in  that  quarter  "scarcely 
anything  but  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  which  we 
must  have  and  as  certainly  shall  have  if  we  remain  a  nation." 
In  fact  Pinckney,  in  one  of  the  most  brilliant  achievements  of 
our  early  diplomacy,  had  gained  more  than  that;  for,  exceed 
ing  his  instructions,  he  included  in  the  treaty  important  com 
mercial  provisions,  and  a  pledge  from  Spain  to  cause  no  more 
troubles  among  the  Indians. 

One  other  incident  of  inestimable  importance  marked  the 
course  of  these  negotiations.  At  one  time  there  was  a  not  un 
founded  apprehension  that  Great  Britain  might  seize  some  of  the 
Spanish  territory  adjacent  to  the  United  States.  At  that,  Jeffer 
son  instructed  Gouverneur  Morris  to  intimate  to  the  British  gov 
ernment  that  "we  should  contemplate  a  change  of  neighbors 
/with  extreme  uneasiness, ' '  and  that  ' '  a  balance  of  power  on  our 
borders  is  not  less  desirable  to  us  than  a  balance  of  power  in 
Europe  has  always  appeared  to  them."  In  all  his  career  Jef 
ferson  never  made  a  wiser  or  more  statesmanlike  utterance 
than  that.  It  was  really  one  of  the  great  landmarks  of  Ameri 
can  diplomacy.  It  foreshadowed  the  later  declarations  of  our 


ESTABLISHING  NEUTRALITY  199 

Government  concerning  Louisiana,  Florida  and  Cuba,  the  Mon 
roe  Doctrine,  and  the  Polk  Doctrine.  At  the  time  it  passed  with 
little  notice,  but  in  after  years  it  loomed  into  commanding  pro 
portions. 

In  May,  1796,  a  convention  relating  to  the  Indians  was  con-.  ','1 
eluded  with  Great  Britain.  In  September,  1795,  a  treaty  nomi 
nally  of  peace  and  amity  was  made  with  Algiers,  and  in  Novem 
ber  of  the  following  year  one  of  peace  and  friendship  was  made 
with  Tripoli ;  but  both  of  these  latter  were  little  more  than  agree 
ments  to  continue  paying  to  those  piratical  powers  the  blackmail 
which  we  were  not  yet  strong  enough  at  sea  to  refuse.  Beyond 
these  there  were  no  other  diplomatic  transactions  of  moment  in 
Washington's  administration.  But  those  which  we  have  re 
counted  were  sufficient  to  make  it  forever  memorable.  The 
great  foundation  stones  of  our  foreign  policy  were  laid:  inde 
pendence,  neutrality,  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  complete  separa 
tion  from  European  politics,  and  the  dominance  of  the  United 
States  on  the  North  American  continent.  Well  might  Washing 
ton,  who  was  supremely  to  be  credited  with  these  achievements, 
write  as  he  did  to  Pickering:  "I  have  always  given  it  as  my 
decided  opinion  that  no  nation  had  a  right  to  meddle  in  the  in 
ternal  concerns  of  another;  that  every  one  had  a  right  to  form 
and  adopt  whatever  government  they  liked  best  to  live  under 
themselves;  and  that  if  this  country  could,  consistently  with  its 
engagements,  maintain  a  strict  neutrality,  and  thereby  preserve 
peace,  it  was  bound  to  do  so  by  motives  of  policy,  interest,  and 
every  other  consideration."  That  policy  was  founded  by  Wash 
ington  and  was  maintained  inviolate  by  him  for  transmission  to 
his  successors  and  to  his  country  for  all  time. 


VIII 

THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY 

THE  first  eight  years  of  our  national  life  under  the  Con 
stitution,  the  two-termed  administration  of  our  first  Presi 
dent,  and  also  the  first  fourteen  years  of  independence  and 
peace,  were  thus  completed.  Through  them  the  United  States 
had  attained  an  improved  though  not  yet  altogether  satisfactory 
position  among  nations,  and  it  had  made  itself  the  conspicuous 
protagonist  of  principles  of  international  law  so  advanced  and 
exalted  as  to  command  the  wonder  and  the  not  always  ungrudg 
ing  admiration  of  the  world.  But  its  position  and  its  policies 
were  by  no  means  confirmed  beyond  dispute  or  challenge. 
Spain,  perhaps,  though  she  was  our  oldest  and  most  constant 
enemy,  conceded  our  just  status  more  fully  than  any  other. 
But  she  did  so  against  her  will,  being  in  her  decadence  and  un 
able  effectually  to  resist  our  rising  power.  Great  Britain  gave 
us  a  partial  acknowledgment,  and  had  probably  a  more  just  ap 
preciation  of  this  country  and  of  its  assured  destiny  than  any 
other.  But,  with  a  characteristic  combination  of  conservatism 
and  arrogance,  she  persisted  in  arbitrarily  imposing  upon  us 
her  own  rules  and  practices.  France,  for  twenty  years  at  least 
our  nominal  ally  and  often  hailed  with  unthinking  enthusiasm 
as  our  one  friend,  scarcely  acknowledged  our  national  and  in 
ternational  status  at  all,  and  was  actually  beginning  to  wage 
war  against  us  to  subvert  that  status  and  to  make  us  if  possible 
subservient  to  her  own  selfish  interests.  These  three  powers  had 
almost  a  monopoly  thus  far  of  our  foreign  relations,  as  indeed 
they  had  had  from  the  beginning  of  our  history.  We  had  com 
mercial  conventions  with  a  few  others.  With  the  bulk  of  the 
world  we  still  had  no  formal  and  official  relations  whatever. 
We  had  made  no  treaties  with  and  sent  no  ministers  to  a  major 
ity  of  the  powers.  Our  commerce  with  them  was  increasing, 

200 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  201 

however,  and  to  some  countries  we  had  sent  consuls  without 
having  treaties,  under  a  sort  of  unwritten  common  law  of  the 
world. 

Nevertheless  we  had  accomplished  much.  There  is  no  exag 
geration  in  saying  that  we  had  done  as  much  in  foreign  as  in 
home  affairs;  we  had  done  as  much  in  organizing  foreign  rela 
tionships  and  establishing  foreign  policies  as  we  had  done  in 
the  development  of  constitutional  principles  at  home  and  the  pro 
motion  of  domestic  prosperity.  We  had  in  these  years  estab 
lished,  though  the  fact  was  not  altogether  recognized  at  the  time 
by  the  world,  the  great  fundamental  principles  upon  which  all 
subsequent  extensions  and  developments  of  external  relationships 
and  policies  have  been  based.  In  all  the  more  than  a  century  of 
foreign  relationships  which  remains  for  us  to  consider,  we  shall 
find  scarcely  a  single  new  principle,  but  merely  a  further  work 
ing  out  of  the  principles  of  Washington's  administration.  The 
first  of  these  cardinal  doctrines  was  that  of  impregnable  inde 
pendence,  and  the  equal  sovereignty  of  the  United  States  with 
any  and  all  other  nations  of  the  world.  France  more  than  any 
other  had  striven  to  deny  and  to  prevent  this,  and  to  make  us  a 
mere  dependency  upon  her.  But  we  had  wisely  and  indeed  ne- 
cessitously  insisted  upon  fulfilment  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence.  We  were  no  quasi-state,  no  dwarf  or  cripple,  no 
mere  probationer  on  sufferance.  We  were  a  full-fledged,  full- 
grown  nation,  possessed  of  all  the  functions,  powers,  and  rights 
of  national  sovereignty,  the  peer  in  legal  standing  of  any  other 
nation  in  the  world;  inalienably  endowed  with  full  powers,  in 
Jefferson's  pithy  phrase,  "to  do  all  acts  and  things  which  inde 
pendent  States  may  of  right  do." 

The  second  doctrine  was  neutrality,  which  was  a  far  greater  ^,- 
novelty,  both  to  America  and  to  all  other  powers.  Thitherto 
every  nation  had  instinctively,  as  a  matter  of  course,  inclined 
toward  one  or  the  other  belligerent  in  every  war,  so  that  a  war 
between  two  considerable  powers  often  meant  war  among  all 
and  generally  meant  the  division  of  the  world  in  sympathies. 
And  certainly  never  before  in  history  had  the  American  States 
been  neutral  in  any  war  in  which  Great  Britain,  France,  or 
Spain  was  concerned.  We  had  therefore  at  this  time  our  first 
subjective  experience  in  the  exercise  of  neutrality,  a  strange  and 


202  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

unwonted  thing  to  us,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  we 
did  not  at  first  know  how  to  exercise  it  aright.  At  the  same 
time  we  set  to  the  world  the  great  objective  example  of  a  power 
thus  practising  neutrality  in  the  face  of  exceptionally  strong 
motives  to  do  otherwise.  Seldom  had  any  country  resisted  so 
strong  temptations,  urgings,  threats,  and  what  not,  to  array  it 
self  on  the  side  of  an  alien  belligerent.  The  world  stood  aston 
ished  at  the  measure  of  our  resistance  and  forbearance. 

The  third  great  doctrine  may  be  described  in  a  much  misused 
word  as  Americanism.  These  States  began  to  realize  that  they 
were  indeed  a  new  nation  and  no  longer  a  colony  or  an  appan 
age  of  any  kind,  and  that  therefore  they  had  their  own  set  of 
interests  which  were  quite  separate  and  different  from  those  of 
European  nations.  That  did  not  mean  that  our  interests  were 
antagonistic  to  theirs.  But  we  had  our  own  way  to  pursue,  our 
own  institutions  to  develop,  and  we  were  to  do  these  things  our 
selves,  without  the  aid,  the  meddling,  or  the  duress  of  any  for 
eign  power.  The  principle  of  neutrality  forbade  us  to  inter 
vene  in  the  affairs  of  Europe,  and  so,  equally,  the  principle  of 
Americanism  forbade  Europe,  or  constrained  us  to  forbid 
Europe,  to  intervene  in  any  of  our  affairs.  Europe  was  no 
more  to  use  this  continent  as  a  fighting  ground  in  her  wars,  and 
she  was  no  more  to  manipulate  our  politics,  our  laws  and  customs, 
our  commercial  and  fiscal  systems,  for  her  advantage. 

<  Fourth,  there  was  the  doctrine  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas  and 
the  application  to  naval  warfare  of  a  measure  of  the  interna 
tional  law  which  prevailed  in  warfare  on  land.  That  was  ex 
pressed  in  the  historic  phrase,  "free  ships,  free  goods."  It  is 
true  that  this  doctrine  did  not  originate  with  us,  but  it  was  be 
cause  of  America  that  Frederick  the  Great  first  put  it  forward, 
and  other  European  powers  nominally  inclined  themselves  to 
ward  its  adoption.  It  was  embodied  in  one  of  our  earliest 
treaties,  and  it  was  certainly  and  altogether  in  respect  of  Ameri 
can  commerce  that  the  principle  was  first  practically  tested.  A 
l>  fifth  doctrine  was  that  of  the  arbitration  of  international  dis 
putes,  which  in  our  day  has  arisen  to  a  predominant  place  in 
the  affairs  of  the  world  at  large.  Franklin  and  Hamilton  were 
the  earliest  advocates  of  this  principle  in  its  modern  form.  It 
is  true  that  international  arbitration  was  frequently  practised  by 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  203 

Greece,  Rome,  and  other  nations  in  classic  times,  and  by  Euro 
pean  States  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  later.  It  is  equally  true  that 
arbitration  in  the  form  in  which  it  became  so  effective  during 
the  nineteenth  century  was  practically  introduced  to  the  world 
in  two  of  the  earliest  American  treaties,  namely,  Jay's  treaty 
with  Great  Britain  and  Pinckney's  with  Spain.  We  may  add 
the  sixth  principle,  of  extradition  of  criminals  from  one  country 
to  another,  which  also  was  established  in  Jay's  treaty.  In  the 
century  and  a  quarter  which  has  elapsed  since  the  administration 
of  Washington  began,  no  new  principle  additional  to  these  has 
been  established.  All  our  vast  development  of  international  re 
lationships  has  been  merely  a  logical  enlargement  of  the  super 
structure  which  rests  upon  this  foundation. 

Not  less  in  importance  than  these  principles  themselves,  per 
haps,  was  the  growth  of  the  American  spirit  of  legitimate  self- 
consciousness,  or  of  realization  of  these  things.  It  is  true  that 
faction  was  strong,  too  strong;  and  it  seemed  to  be  increasing 
in  strength  and  virulence.  But  it  was  running  an  acute  course, 
and  was  rapidly  approaching  a  crisis  which  would  end  its  per 
nicious  activity.  It  rose  to  a  higher  and  more  dangerous  pitch 
in  Washington's  time  than  ever  in  our  day — I  mean  factional 
ism  in  our  foreign  relationships — and  it  reached  its  culmination 
in  the  succeeding  administration  of  John  Adams.  Never  since 
then — save  perhaps  in  a  few  isolated  and  not  highly  important 
cases — has  it  exerted  a  serious  influence  upon  our  diplomacy. 
And  even  when  its  madness  rose  to  its  most  menacing  height  the 
people,  though  unconsciously,  were  coming  to  realize  that  the 
nation  must  be  sufficient  unto  itself.  They  continued  and  might 
continue  to  disagree  upon  some  details  of  foreign  policy.  But 
they  began  to  agree  that  whatever  our  policy  was,  it  should  be 
dictated  by  and  based  upon  our  own  interests  and  not  those  of 
any  foreign  power;  then,  that  whatever  policy  was  adopted  by 
the  administration  in  power  should  be  loyally  supported  by  the 
whole  country,  so  that  however  divided  we  were  at  home  we 
should  present  a  united  front  to  the  rest  of  the  world ;  and  finally 
that  our  foreign  policies  should  be,  in  their  essential  principles, 
continuous  and  unaffected  by  the  changes  of  domestic  politics. 

The  best  expression  that  has  ever  been  made  of  this  dawning 
philosophy  of  American  foreign  relationships  was  made  by 


204  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Washington  in  his  farewell  address,  at  the  close  of  his  adminis 
tration.  We  need  not  trouble  ourselves  with  the  question  how 
far  that  utterance  was  his  own  composition,  or  to  what  extent  it 
was  prepared  for  him  by  Hamilton  or  inspired  by  Jay.  The 
dominant  sentiments  of  it  were  characteristically  his  own;  ex 
pressed  by  him  in  fragmentary  form  on  many  occasions  years 
before;  and  if  they  were  also  cherished  by  Hamilton  and  Jay, 
it  is  no  secret  that  those  three  great  men  were  to  an  exceptional 
degree  in  accord  upon  nearly  all  governmental  principles.  The 
address  is  hortatory  and  advisory  in  tone,  and  in  that  capacity 
was  no  doubt  needed.  But  it  was  also,  though  perhaps  uncon 
sciously,  a  definition  and  a  description  of  the  status  which  the 
country  had  already  attained  and  of  the  attitude  which  under 
Washington's  supreme  leadership  it  had  already  assumed  toward 
the  nations  of  the  world.  At  the  beginning  of  his  administra 
tion  it  would  have  been  incongruous,  unappreciated,  incompre 
hensible  to  the  people,  and  might  even  have  provoked  antagonism 
and  resentment.  At  the  end  of  it,  it  was  appropriate,  appre 
ciated,  and  acceptable ;  itself  the  inspiring  measure  of  the  prog 
ress  which  had  been  made  in  those  eight  years  of  storm  and 
stress.  It  will  be  enlightening  and  profitable  for  us  to  recall 
some  of  its  salient  passages : 

"For  this  you  have  every  inducement  of  sympathy  and  inter 
est.  Citizens  by  birth  or  choice  of  a  common  country,  that  coun 
try  has  a  right  to  concentrate  your  affections.  .  .  . 

' '  Observe  good  faith  and  justice  towards  all  nations ;  cultivate 
peace  and  harmony  with  all.  Religion  and  morality  enjoin  this 
conduct,  and  can  it  be  that  good  policy  does  not  equally  enjoin 
it?  It  will  be  worthy  of  a  free,  enlightened,  and  at  no  distant 
period  a  great  nation,  to  give  to  mankind  the  magnanimous  and 
too  novel  example  of  a  people  always  guided  by  an  exalted  jus 
tice  and  benevolence.  .  .  . 

"In  the  execution  of  such  a  plan,  nothing  is  more  essential 
than  that  permanent,  inveterate  antipathies  against  particular 
nations,  and  passionate  attachments  for  others,  should  be  ex 
cluded;  and  that  in  place  of  them,  just  and  amicable  feelings 
towards  all  should  be  cultivated.  The  nation  which  indulges  to 
wards  another  an  habitual  hatred  or  an  habitual  fondness  is  in 
some  degree  a  slave.  It  is  a  slave  of  its  animosity  or  to  its  af- 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  205 

fection,  either  of  which  is  sufficient  to  lead  it  astray  from  its 
duty  and  its  interest.  .  .  . 

" Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence  (I  conjure 
you  to  believe  me,  fellow-citizens),  the  jealousy  of  a  free  people 
ought  to  be  constantly  awake ;  since  history  and  experience  prove 
that  foreign  influence  is  one  of  the  most  baneful  foes  of  repub 
lican  government.  But  that  jealousy,  to  be  useful,  must  be  im 
partial;  else  it  becomes  an  instrument  of  the  very  influence  to 
be  avoided,  instead  of  a  defense  against  it.  Excessive  partiality 
for  one  foreign  nation,  and  excessive  dislike  of  another,  cause 
those  whom  they  actuate  to  see  danger  only  on  one  side,  and  serve 
to  veil  and  even  second  the  arts  of  influence  on  the  other.  .  .  . 

*  *  The  great  rule  of  conduct  for  us  in  regard  to  foreign  nations 
is,  in  extending  our  commercial  relations,  to  have  with  them  as 
little  political  connection  as  possible.  So  far  as  we  have  already 
formed  engagements,  let  them  be  fulfilled  with  perfect  good 
faith.  Here  let  us  stop.  Europe  has  a  set  of  primary  interests, 
which  to  us  have  no,  or  a  very  remote,  relation.  Hence  she  must 
be  engaged  in  frequent  controversies,  the  causes  of  which  are 
essentially  foreign  to  our  concerns.  Hence  therefore  it  must 
be  unwise  in  us  to  implicate  ourselves,  by  artificial  ties,  in 
the  ordinary  vicissitudes  of  her  politics,  or  the  ordinary 
combinations  and  collusions  of  her  friendships  or  enmities. 
Our  detached  and  distant  situation  invites  and  enables  us 
to  pursue  a  different  course.  If  we  remain  one  people,  under 
an  efficient  Government,  the  period  is  not  far  off  when  we  may 
defy  material  injury  from  external  annoyance;  when  we  may 
take  such  an  attitude  as  will  cause  the  neutrality  we  may  at  any 
time  resolve  upon  to  be  scrupulously  respected ;  when  belligerent 
nations,  under  the  impossibility  of  making  acquisitions  upon 
us,  will  not  lightly  hazard  the  giving  us  provocation;  when  we 
may  choose  peace  or  war,  as  our  interest,  guided  by  justice,  shall 
counsel.  Why  forego  the  advantages  of  so  peculiar  a  situation  ? 
Why  quit  our  own  to  stand  upon  foreign  ground  ?  Why,  by  in 
terweaving  our  destiny  with  that  of  any  part  of  Europe,  entan 
gle  our  peace  and  prosperity  in  the  toils  of  European  ambition, 
rivalship,  interest,  humor,  or  caprice? 

"It  is  our  true  policy  to  steer  clear  of  permanent  alliances 
with  any  portion  of  the  foreign  world — so  far,  I  mean,  as  we  are 


206  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

now  at  liberty  to  do  it ;  for  let  me  not  be  understood  as  capable 
of  patronizing  infidelity  to  existing  engagements.  I  hold  the 
maxim  no  less  applicable  to  public  than  to  private  affairs,  that 
honesty  is  always  the  best  policy.  I  repeat  it,  therefore,  let  those 
engagements  be  observed  in  their  genuine  sense.  But,  in  my 
opinion,  it  is  unnecessary  and  would  be  unwise  to  extend  them. 
Taking  care  always  to  keep  ourselves,  by  suitable  establishments, 
on  a  respectable  defensive  posture,  we  may  safely  trust  to  tem 
porary  alliances  for  extraordinary  emergencies. 

"Harmony,  liberal  intercourses  with  all  nations,  are  recom 
mended  by  policy,  humanity,  and  interest.  But  even  our  com 
mercial  policy  should  hold  an  equal  and  impartial  hand ;  neither 
seeking  nor  granting  exclusive  favors  or  preferences ;  consulting 
the  natural  course  of  things ;  diffusing  and  diversifying  by  gentle 
means  the  streams  of  commerce,  but  forcing  nothing;  establish 
ing  with  powers  so  disposed — in  order  to  give  trade  a  stable 
course,  to  define  the  rights  of  our  merchants,  and  to  enable  the 
Government  to  support  them — conventional  rules  of  intercourse, 
the  best  that  present  circumstances  and  mutual  opinion  will  per 
mit,  but  temporary,  and  liable  to  be  from  time  to  time  aban 
doned  or  varied  as  experience  and  circumstances  shall  dictate; 
constantly  keeping  in  view  that  it  is  folly  in  one  nation  to  look 
for  disinterested  favors  from  another;  that  it  must  pay  with  a 
portion  of  its  independence  for  whatever  it  may  accept  under 
that  character ;  that  by  such  acceptance  it  may  place  itself  in  the 
condition  of  having  given  equivalents  for  nominal  favors,  and 
yet  of  being  reproached  with  ingratitude  for  not  giving  more. 
There  can  be  no  greater  error  than  to  expect  or  calculate  upon 
real  favors  from  nation  to  nation.  It  is  an  illusion  which  expe 
rience  must  cure,  which  a  just  pride  ought  to  discard/' 

Such  was  the  foreign  policy  of  Washington.  Such  was  the 
policy  which  he  impressed  upon  the  nation  in  its  infancy,  and 
bequeathed  as  a  priceless  legacy  to  its  maturer  years.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  accepted,  fully,  completely,  and  loy 
ally  by  his  successor,  and  that  its  continuance  and  maintenance 
were  sincerely  undertaken.  They  were,  indeed,  in  the  end  ef 
fected  ;  but  only  after  the  most  violent  crisis  and  the  most  dis 
creditable  eruption  of  factional  fury  in  all  our  history. 

John  Adams  intended  and  honestly  strove  to  continue  the  for^ 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  207 

eign  policy  of  Washington.  But  unfortunately  he  was  not  an 
other  Washington,  either  in  his  personal  qualities  or  in  the 
regard  of  the  nation  for  him.  We  may  unhesitatingly  concede 
that  he  was  as  honest  as  Washington.  His  bitter  enemy,  Jeffer 
son,  declared  that  God  never  made  a  more  honest  man.  He 
was  also  as  fearless,  as  resolute,  and  as  patriotic  as  Washington 
himself.  But  he  was  singularly  devoid  of  tact,  vain  and  sensitive 
to  an  extraordinary  degree,  irascible,  and  quite  unable  to  be  a 
leader  or  a  manager  of  men,  or  to  curry  favor  with  the  individu 
als  or  with  the  populace.  In  his  attitude  toward  the  two  parties 
into  which  the  nation  was  divided  he  at  first  strove  to  be  impar 
tial.  He  endeavored  to  disarm  the  suspicion  of  inclination 
toward  a  monarchy  by  showing  special  consideration  for  Jeffer 
son  and  the  Anti-Federalists;  but  in  the  end  he  was  bitterly 
antagonized  and  assailed  by  them.  Nor  could  he  command  the 
support  of  the  Federalists,  for  between  him  and  Hamilton,  their 
leader,  there  arose  implacable  enmity,  which  resulted  in  the 
defeat  and  practical  extinction  of  that  once  great  party.  No 
man  ever  possessed  less  of  the  arts  of  a  politician  than  Adams, 
and  none  ever  possessed  them  all  in  a  higher  degree  than  Jeffer 
son,  and  the  result  of  the  partizan  strife  between  them  was 
therefore  a  foregone  conclusion.  Moreover,  the  people  at  large 
felt  toward  Adams  little  of  the  reverence  which  most  of  them 
cherished  for  Washington.  They  felt  no  restraint  in  attack 
ing  him,  any  more  than  in  attacking  any  other  public  man  of 
the  day.  With  his  accession  to  the  Presidency,  therefore,  a 
profound,  significant,  and  permanent  change  came  over  the  spirit 
of  American  politics,  which  affected  foreign  as  well  as  domestic 
affairs. 

In  his  attitude  toward  England  and  France,  and  therefore 
toward  the  chief  issues  of  foreign  policy,  Adams  was  notably 
impartial;  probably  the  most  impartial  statesman  in  America. 
He  was  himself  of  English  ancestry,  and  was  profoundly  imbued 
with  the  characteristic  English  spirit.  His  natural  sympathies 
were  with  England  and  English  institutions,  principles,  and  poli 
cies.  Yet  for  many  years  he  had  cultivated  intense  opposition 
to  England.  He  had  suffered  neglect  and  insult  for  three  years 
as  our  scarcely  recognized  minister  to  that  country.  He  had 
become  convinced  that  the  English  government  was  unrelent- 


208  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ingly  hostile  to  America  and  meant  if  possible  to  compass  our 
destruction.  Therefore,  while  he  scouted  with  contempt  the 
notion  that  we  owed  France  eternal  gratitude  for  our  independ 
ence,  he  was  well  fitted  to  hold  the  balance  true  between  these 
two  powers.  Neither  of  them,  to  his  mind,  was  our  friend,  but 
with  neither  of  them  should  we  quarrel  and  fight,  if  it  was  pos 
sible  to  avoid  doing  so.  He  had  bluntly  told  King  George  to  his 
face  that  America  was  the  only  country  for  which  he  cared,  and 
he  was  convinced  that  the  supreme  welfare  of  America  required 
that  we  should  keep  the  peace.  This  was  for  two  reasons.  One 
was  that  we  had  no  navy  fit  to  compete  writh  that  of  England 
or  France,  and  for  a  nation  thus  unarmed  to  engage  in  war 
would  be  folly.  The  other  was,  that  a  war  with  one  of  the  two 
countries  named  would  mean  an  alliance  with  the  other,  and  he 
had  from  the  beginning  been  the  resolute  opponent  of  European 
alliances  of  any  kind.  The  one  paramount  motive  of  his  foreign 
policy  was,  therefore,  to  keep  the  peace;  a  difficult  task  when 
half  of  the  nation  was  clamoring  for  war  with  one  country  and 
the  other  half  was  clamoring  for  war  with  the  other  country. 
But  so  transparent  was  Adams's  honesty  and  so  manifest  was 
his  high  and  noble  purpose  that  Jefferson  himself  was  con 
strained  to  say  of  him:  "I  do  not  believe  Mr.  Adams  wishes 
war  with  France,  nor  do  I  believe  he  will  truckle  to  England  as 
servilely  as  has  been  done. ' ' 

At  the  very  beginning  of  Adams's  administration,  however, 
war  with  France  seemed  inevitable.  That  country,  in  its  refusal 
to  receive  our  minister,  Pinckney,  and  in  the  scandalous  manner 
of  that  refusal,  had  added  insult  to  injury.  That  we  did  not 
promptly  declare  war  against  her  indicated  either  our  military 
or  naval  impotence  or  an  almost  superhuman  degree  of  patience 
and  forbearance.  In  fact,  it  indicated  both.  But  certainly  the 
circumstances  were  most  embarrassing  to  Adams;  particularly 
when,  soon  after  his  inauguration,  a  full  report  was  received 
from  Pinckney,  relating  that  the  French  government  had  threat 
ened  to  arrest  him  as  a  criminal  for  remaining  in  that  country 
without  its  permission.  Adams  turned  to  his  advisers,  the  cab 
inet,  which  he  had  received  from  Washington  and  had  retained 
without  change.  Pickering  was  secretary  of  state,  Wolcott  of 
the  Treasury,  and  .McHenry  of  the  war  department.  They  were 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  209 

able  and  patriotic  men,  but  not  in  sympathy  with,  his  policy  nor 
attached  to  him  personally,  and  he  got  little  aid  or  comfort  from 
them.  Thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  he  at  first  tried  to  emu 
late  Washington's  plan.  Washington  had  withdraw*!  Gouv- 
erneur  Morris  from  the  French  mission  because  he  was  unac 
ceptable  to  the  revolutionists,  and  had  sent  the  rabid  Gallican, 
Monroe,  in  his  place.  Now  Adams  thought  of  similarly  replac 
ing  the  sturdy  Federalist  Pinckney,  who  was  unacceptable  to 
France,  with  some  conspicuous  Anti-Federalist  and  Gallican. 
His  first  choice  was  Jefferson  himself,  but  Jefferson  was  vice- 
president  and  therefore  could  not  go.  His  next  choice  was  Madi 
son,  with  whom  he  would  have  sent  Hamilton  as  a  colleague; 
but  Madison  would  not  go,  preferring  to  remain  here  to  promote 
the  progress  of  the  Anti-Federalist  party,  in  which  he  was  Jef 
ferson's  first  lieutenant.  Unfortunately  the  secret  of  these  de 
liberations  was  betrayed  to  France,  and  as  soon  as  it  was  known 
there  that  neither  Jefferson  nor  Madison  would  be  sent,  and 
there  was  no  hope  that  Monroe  would  be  returned,  there  was  a 
fresh  accession  of  anti-American  brutality,  and  the  Directory 
issued  against  American  shipping  and  commerce  a  still  more 
hostile  decree  than  any  which  had  been  made  before.  Bonaparte 
was  winning  his  great  victories  in  Italy,  and  France  was  drunk 
with  military  pride;  and  America  had  no  navy.  Why  should 
America  have  any  rights  which  France  was  bound  to  respect  ? 

In  these  circumstances  Adams  called  Congress  together  in 
special  session.  It  met  on  May  15,  1797.  His  address  to  it  at 
its  opening  was  as  temperate  yet  as  forceful  and  dignified  as 
Washington  himself  could  have  made  it.  He  resented  the 
French  insults  to  America  at  the  time  of  Monroe's  leave-taking. 
He  declared  that  for  France  to  refuse  to  receive  Pinckney  until 
we  had  acceded  to  her  demands  without  discussion  and  without 
investigation  of  them,  was  "to  treat  us  neither  as  allies,  nor  as 
friends,  nor  as  a  sovereign  State."  He  noted  the  offensive  at 
tempt  of  the  French  government  to  discriminate  between  the 
Government  and  the  people  of  America,  and  insisted  that  there 
should  never  be  a  time  when  the  nation  would  fail  to  support 
its  chosen  agents  in  foreign  negotiations.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
his  sincere  desire  to  keep  the  peace  with  France  as  with  all  na 
tions,  and  therefore,  believing  that  neither  the  honor  nor  the 

VOL.  1—14 


210  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

interest  of  the  United  States  absolutely  forbade  the  repetition 
of  friendly  overtures  to  France,  he  would  institute  a  fresh  at 
tempt  at  negotiation.  At  the  same  time  the  depredations  which 
France  was  committing  upon  our  commerce,  the  personal  injuries 
which  were  being  inflicted  upon  our  citizens,  and  the  general 
complexion  of  affairs  rendered  it  his  indispensable  duty  to 
recommend  to  Congress  the  consideration  of  effectual  measures 
of  defense.  The  measures  suggested  by  him  comprised  an  in 
crease  of  the  regular  army  in  artillery  and  cavalry,  the  enlist 
ment  of  a  volunteer  army,  and  the  prompt  construction  of  an 
adequate  navy.  Indeed,  Adams  was — he  had  been  long  before 
this  date — the  first  great  advocate  of  the  development  of  Amer 
ican  power  at  sea. 

There  could  have  been  no  wiser  or  more  worthy  policy  than 
this,  but  unfortunately  Adams  was  not  a  sufficiently  tactful  and 
politic  leader  of  men  to  execute  it  with  facility,  and  the  spirit 
of  faction  was  too  perniciously  active  to  permit  him  to  have  the 
undivided  support  which  he  deserved.  The  Anti-Federalists 
were  unsympathetic,  while  the  Federalists  were  divided  among 
themselves  into  two  factions,  neither  of  which  gave  him  loyal 
support.  Adams's  plan  was  to  send  a  commission  of  three  emi 
nent  men  to  France.  One  of  them  must  be  Pinckney,  to  vindi 
cate  him  against  the  scandalous  treatment  which  he  had  suffered. 
The  second  was  John^  Marshall  of  Virginia,  also  a  Federalist. 
For  the  third  place  another  Federalist,  Francis  Dana  of  Massa 
chusetts,  was  selected,  but  he  declined  it,  and  Adams  thereupon 
offered  it  to  Elbridge  Gerry  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  an  Anti- 
Federalist  and  friend  of  Jefferson.  This  division  of  the  com 
mission  between  the  two  parties  was  vigorously  disapproved  by 
the  cabinet;  six  Federalist  senators  voted  against  confirm 
ing  Gerry;  and  the  alienation  of  Adams  from  the  Hamil- 
tonian  majority  of  the  Federalist  party  was  intensified.  Mean 
time  Congress  acted  upon  the  President's  recommendation.  In 
order  to  restrain  warlike  passions  an  act  was  passed  forbidding 
privateering  in  advance  of  a  declaration  of  war,  and  an  order 
was  issued  forbidding  the  arming  of  merchant  ships.  The  ex 
portation  of  arms  was  also  forbidden.  On  the  other  hand  bills 
were  enacted  for  the  enlistment  of  an  army  of  80,000  volunteers, 
for  the  fortification  of  our  harbors,  and  for  the  completion  and 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  211 

heavy  arming  of  three  frigates,  the  building  of  which  had  been 
begun  in  view  of  our  troubles  with  the  Barbary  pirates.  It  is 
interesting  to  recall  that  the  equipment  of  these  vessels  excited 
much  merriment  and  ridicule  in  France  and  England ;  still  more 
interesting  when  we  remember  that  these  three  frigates  were  the 
United  States,  the  Constellation,  and  the  Constitution.  Thus  the 
nation  strove  to  keep  the  peace,  prepared  for  war,  and  awaited 
the  result  of  its  extraordinary  mission  to  France. 

France  was  at  that  time  still  under  the  Directory,  the  author 
ity  of  which,  however,  Bonaparte  was  beginning  to  undermine. 
The  minister  for  foreign  affairs  was  Bonaparte's  close  friend, 
Talleyrand,  one  of  the  shrewdest  but  most  unscrupulous  and 
dishonest  of  men.  The  French  government,  flushed  with  the 
military  successes  of  Bonaparte,  had  already  begun  a  course  of 
arrogance  and  oppression  toward  all  European  States  which  were 
weak  enough  to  make  such  a  policy  safe.  As  for  the  individual 
members  of  the  Government,  they  were  habitually  practising 
blackmail,  extortion,  bribery,  and  every  form  of  pecuniary  cor 
ruption  which  would  line  their  pockets  with  unclean  gold ;  both 
States  and  individuals  being  their  victims.  Chief  among  the 
practitioners  and  beneficiaries  of  this  sordid  scoundrelism  was 
Talleyrand  himself,  and  since  France  was  already  practising 
oppression  against  America  with  impunity,  he  determined  in 
addition  to  try  blackmail  and  extortion. 

The  three  commissioners  reached  Paris  early  in  October,  1797, 
and  presented  their  credentials  to  Talleyrand.  He  received 
them  civilly  enough,  and  for  a  few  days  all  seemed  to  be  going 
well.  Then  Talleyrand  declined  further  personal  intercourse 
with  the  commissioners  and  sent  to  them  in  his  stead  three  agents 
as  his  representatives.  These  men  began  by  dwelling  upon  the 
difficulties  to  be  overcome  in  reaching  an  adjustment  of  affairs. 
The  President's  address  at  the  opening  of  Congress  had  given 
offense  and  must  be  apologized  for  or  explained.  Then,  France 
was  in  need  of  money  for  public  uses,  and  would  expect  a  large 
contribution  from  America.  Finally,  if  the  negotiations  were 
to  continue,  a  gift  of  $240,000,  to  be  divided  personally  and  pri 
vately  among  the  members  of  the  Directory  and  Talleyrand, 
would  be  necessary.  This  demand  for  a  bribe  the  American  com 
missioners  curtly  rejected.  They  were,  they  said,  neither  em- 


212  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

powered  nor  disposed  to  bribe  the  members  of  the  Government 
to  which  they  were  accredited.  They  then,  repressing  their  in 
dignation  and  disgust,  proceeded  to  deal  with  the  other  proposals. 
America  could  not  make  a  loan  to  France,  because  that  would 
be  a  violation  of  the  principles  of  neutrality  which  had  been 
proclaimed  and  which  this  country  intended  to  maintain.  The 
three  Frenchmen  interrupted  them  with  blackmailing  menaces. 
Let  America  remember,  they  said,  the  fate  of  the  Venetian 
republic.  Let  her  remember  that  the  diplomacy  of  France  had 
formerly  reached  and  could  again  reach  to  the  internal  affairs  of 
America;  to  incite  a  conflict  between  domestic  factions  and  to 
change  the  character  of  the  Government  itself.  The  Americans 
were  reminded  that  they  had  no  navy  and  that  their  coasts  were 
defenseless.  They  replied  that  to  ravage  our  coasts  would  be  a 
very  different  thing  from  subduing  and  destroying  the  nation. 

Thus  the  bickering  went  on,  until  at  last  one  of  the  Frenchmen 
exclaimed,  "Gentlemen,  you  do  not  speak  to  the  point.  It  is 
money;  it  is  expected  that  you  will  offer  money/'  The  Amer 
icans  replied  that  they  had  already  definitely  answered  that 
point.  "No,"  said  the  Frenchmen,  "you  have  not.  What  is 
your  answer?"  "It  is,"  replied  the  Americans,  "no;  and  no; 
and  again,  no!  Not  a  single  sixpence."  "We  will  spend  mil 
lions  for  defense,"  said  Pinckney,  "but  not  one  cent  for  tribute." 

That  ended  the  matter.  On  November  1  the  American  com 
missioners  determined  to  have  no  further  intercourse  with  the 
three  Frenchmen.  They  prepared,  however,  a  complete  state 
ment  of  the  American  case,  which  was  written  in  vigorous  lan 
guage  by  Marshall,  and  sent  it  to  Talleyrand,  for  him  to  com 
municate  to  the  Directory.  This  was  about  the  middle  of  Janu 
ary,  1798.  Talleyrand  paid  no  attention  to  it  for  two  months. 
Then  he  sent  an  insulting  and  contemptuous  reply.  He  had 
the  effrontery  to  charge  America  with  deliberately  delaying  pro 
ceedings  and  prolonging  the  misunderstanding,  and  with  select 
ing  envoys  who  were  known  to  be  prejudiced  against  France — 
both  wanton  falsehoods.  He  declared  that  Jay  had  been  sent 
to  negotiate  with  England  because  he  was  known  to  be  a  partizan 
of  England,  which  also  was  not  true ;  and  he  asked  why  a  parti 
zan  of  France  could  not  have  been  sent  to  that  country.  In 
conclusion  he  said  -that  he  desired  to  continue  the  negotiations, 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  213 

not  with  Marshall  and  Pinckney  but  with  Gerry  alone.  That 
was  discourteous  to  Marshall  and  Pinckney,  but  it  was  an  un 
speakable  insult  to  Gerry,  since  the  plain  intimation  was  that 
he  was  expected  to  betray  his  country  by  yielding  to  the  corrupt 
proposals  of  Talleyrand.  The  reply  of  the  commissioners  was 
that  they  must  negotiate  together  or  not  at  all.  Marshall  then 
demanded  his  passport,  which  was  grudgingly  given  to  him. 
Pinckney  got  permission,  which  was  given  still  more  grudgingly, 
to  spend  some  time  in  the  south  of  France  for  the  benefit  of  his 
daughter's  health.  Gerry  decided  to  accept  Talleyrand's  invi 
tation  to  remain  in  Paris,  but  said  that  he  would  do  so  merely 
as  a  private  citizen.  His  colleagues  protested  against  this  course, 
but  in  vain.  Gerry  was  made  by  Talleyrand  to  believe  that 
there  was  danger  of  a  declaration  of  war,  which  his  presence 
there  might  avert,  and  he  doubtless  thought  that  he  was  per 
forming  a  patriotic  service  in  remaining.  In  that,  however,  he 
was  mistaken.  Talleyrand  wanted  him  to  stay  solely  in  order 
through  him  to  carry  on  further  intrigues  with  the  Anti-Federal 
ist  party  and  to  exert  a  mischievous  alien  influence  in  American 
domestic  politics.  At  home  his  staying  there  was  much  con 
demned,  and  the  President,  although  his  close  personal  friend, 
angrily  ordered  him  to  return  to  America  at  once.  He  was  able 
to  vindicate  his  integrity  of  purpose,  but  his  judgment  was  fa 
tally  discredited. 

Early  in  March,  1798,  Adams  received  and  laid  before  Con 
gress  a  report  of  all  that  had  occurred  down  to  the  sending  of 
the  three  commissioners'  statement  to  Talleyrand.  This  dis 
closure  roused  the  war  spirit  of  the  Federalists,  and  a  demand 
arose,  led  by  Pickering  himself,  for  an  immediate  declaration. 
Adams,  however,  resolutely  opposed  it.  To  declare  war  would 
probably  mean,  he  said,  to  sacrifice  the  lives  of  the  three  com 
missioners  who  were  still  in  France.  The  demand  for  a  bribe 
and  the  other  insults  were  monstrous — to  nobody  could  they  be 
more  offensive  than  to  Adams  himself — but  they  would  not  jus 
tify  a  weak  and  unprepared  nation  in  declaring  war.  Our  true 
course  was  to  wait,  and  to  let  France  declare  war  if  she  would ; 
and  in  the  meantime,  to  prepare  for  hostilities.  Fortunately, 
Hamilton  approved  these  views  and  thus  far  gave  Adams  his 
support.  Many  of  the  Republicans,  as  the  Anti-Federalists  now 


214  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

called  themselves,  took  the  same  stand.  Jefferson  and  the  ma 
jority  of  his  party,  however,  strongly  opposed  the  President, 
whose  message  he  denounced  as  ''insane."  He  proposed  to  ad 
journ  Congress  until  passions  had  time  to  cool,  but  in  this  he  had 
no  support.  He  incited  his  followers  in  Congress,  however,  to 
challenge  the  correctness  of  Adams's  report  that  there  was  no 
hope  of  further  negotiations. 

Then  Hamilton  instigated  a  master  stroke.  He  had  some  of 
his  'followers  in  Congress  propose  a  resolution,  which  was 
adopted,  demanding  to  see  the  original  correspondence  relating 
to  the  negotiations  with  Talleyrand's  three  bribe-solicitors. 
Nothing  could  have  pleased  Adams  better.  On  a  former  occa 
sion  Washington  had  refused  such  a  demand,  as  he  had  a  right 
in  his  discretion  to  do.  Adams  had  the  same  right,  but  he  chose, 
with  grim  satisfaction,  to  comply  with  the  demand ;  merely  with 
holding  the  names  of  the  three  agents  and  designating  them  in 
stead  as  Messrs.  X.,  Y.,  and  Z.  Otherwise  the  monstrous  story 
of  insult  and  blackmail  was  laid  before  Congress  and  published 
to  the  whole  country.  The  effect  was  electric.  A  tidal  wave  of 
amazement,  indignation,  and  wrath  swept  over  the  country, 
against  the  venal  French  government.  Adams  was  the  hero  of 
the  hour.  Republicans- and  Federalists  alike  rallied  to  his  sup 
port.  Only  Jefferson  himself  and  a  few  extreme  Republicans 
held  aloof.  The  national  anthem,  ' '  Hail,  Columbia ! ' '  was  writ 
ten  as  a  war-song  against  France,  and  was  sung  on  every  hand ; 
as  was  also  " Adams  and  Liberty,"  set  to  the  music  now  known 
as  "The  Star-Spangled  Banner." 

Congress  rose  to  the  emergency  and  enacted  twenty  laws  for 
strengthening  the  national  defense  and  preparing  for  war.  One 
of  these  created  the  navy  department.  Others  provided  for  the 
building  or  purchase  of  twelve  new  warships,  for  the  arming  of 
American  merchantmen  and  authorization  of  their  self-defense, 
and  for  the  seizure  by  our  navy  of  all  French  vessels  which  in 
terfered  with  our  commerce.  There  was  no  declaration  of  war, 
but  the  navy  and  all  American  merchant  vessels  were  authorized 
to  seize  French  privateers  and  even  French  naval  vessels. 
Finally,  Congress  on  July  7,  1798,  abrogated  the  existing  trea 
ties  with  France,  and  we  were  thus  no  longer  even  nominally  in 
alliance  with  a  European  power.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  we 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  215 

had  more  than  a  score  of  efficient  naval  vessels  at  sea,  making 
stern  retaliation  upon  France  for  her  depredations  upon  our 
commerce.  The  frigate  Constellation,  one  of  the  three  of  which 
the  French  had  made  sport,  began  the  work  by  attacking  and 
capturing  a  French  frigate,  L' Insurgent e,  and  before  normal 
relations  were  restored  no  fewer  than  eighty-four  French  ves 
sels  were  captured.  Despite  all  this,  however,  France  did  not 
declare  war  against  us,  a  fact  which  demonstrated  that  she  was 
unprepared  for  such  a  war  and  that  the  threats  of  it  which  Tal 
leyrand  had  made  to  Gerry  were  mere  pretense.  Steps  were  also 
taken  for  enlarging  the  American  army,  and  Washington  came 
out  of  retirement  to  assume  supreme  command ;  but  the  chief 
result  was  a  discreditable  dispute  over  precedence  among  the 
three  major-generals,  which  led  to  the  further  disruption  of  the 
Federalist  party  and  deepened  the  hostility  of  Hamilton  toward 
Adams. 

Marshall  arrived  in  this  country  in  June,  1798,  and  laid  before 
Adams  full  details  of  the  remainder  of  the  case.  Adams  there 
upon  peremptorily  summoned  Gerry  home  and  sent  another 
message  to  Congress  reporting  that  fact  and  its  circumstances, 
and  adding:  "I  will  never  send  another  minister  to  France 
without  assurances  that  he  will  be  received,  respected,  and  hon 
ored  as  the  representative  of  a  great,  free,  powerful,  and  inde 
pendent  nation."  He  was  and  has  since  been  criticized  for  that 
utterance.  It  did  savor  a  little  of  rodomontade  and  probably 
was  unnecessary.  But  there  can  be  no  question  that  there  was 
ample  provocation  for  it.  Indeed,  the  amplest  justification  for 
it  presently  came  from  France  itself.  The  government  of  that 
country  was  engaged  in  too  many  European  wars  to  relish  add 
ing  an  American  war  to  the  list,  and  therefore,  finding  that 
neither  by  cajoling  nor  by  bullying,  neither  by  bribery  nor  by 
blackmail,  was  America  to  be  made  subservient  to  its  wishes,  it 
presently  decided  to  change  its  tactics  and  treat  this  country,  in 
Adams's  words,  as  "a  great,  free,  powerful,  and  independent 
nation. ' ' 

An  intimation  to  that  effect  was  made  to  Gerry,  and  he  re 
ported  it  on  his  arrival  here,  but  little  attention  was  paid  to  him. 
Then  occurred  the  extraordinary  "mission"  of  Dr.  Logan,  a 
Philadelphia  Quaker  and  political  follower  of  Jefferson,  who 


216  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

went  on  his  own  initiative  to  Paris  and  entered  into  negotiations 
with  the  French  government.  He  pleaded  strongly  for  peace, 
told  Talleyrand  how  much  damage  his  policy  had  done  to  the 
reputation  of  France  in  America,  and  persuaded  him  to  release 
some  American  prisoners.  The  man  doubtless  meant  well;  he 
was  well  received  in  Paris,  and  he  succeeded  in  effecting  some 
good.  But  he  was  severely  criticized  at  home  by  those  who 
recognized  the  potential  dangers  of  that  sort  of  unauthorized 
and  unofficial  meddling  in  diplomacy.  Washington  treated 
Logan  with  studied  contempt  and  said  that  if  France  really 
wanted  peace,  as  Talleyrand  had  assured  Logan,  she  could  get 
it  by  stopping  her  seizures  of  our  ships.  A  bill  was  enacted  by 
Congress  forbidding  any  private  citizen  thus  to  enter  into  com 
munication  with  a  foreign  government.  But  Adams,  in  his  ear 
nest  desire  for  peace,  treated  Logan  with  some  consideration, 
listened  to  him,  and  credited  the  assurances  of  peaceful  inten 
tions  which  he  conveyed  from  Talleyrand. 

In  that  Adams  was  doubtless  right,  as  the  prompt  sequel 
showed.  Already  Talleyrand  had  begun  practical  efforts  to 
reconciliate  America  and  to  secure  the  resumption  of  diplomatic 
relations.  Under  his  instructions,  M.  Pichon,  the  French  min 
ister  to  Holland,  sought  intercourse  with  William  Vans  Murray, 
the  American  minister  there,  and  intimated  to  him  that  the 
French  government  would  properly  receive  another  American 
minister  if  one  were  sent.  Murray  reported  this  to  Adams,  in 
October,  and  the  President  conveyed  the  news  to  the  members 
of  his  cabinet,  together  with  a  list  of  questions  on  which  he 
wanted  their  advice  or  opinions,  as  a  guide  for  his  address  to 
Congress  at  its  reassembling.  The  principal  questions  were, 
whether  he  should  recommend  a  declaration  of  war,  and  whether 
he  should  say  that  he  was  ready  to  send  a  new  minister  to 
France  on  satisfactory  assurances  that  he  would  be  well  re 
ceived.  Pickering  and  the  other  members  of  the  cabinet,  being 
intensely  anti-French,  called  a  conclave  of  their  Federalist 
friends,  including  Hamilton  and  Pinckney,  and  prepared  a 
draft  of  the  address  which  they  desired  him  to  deliver  to  Con 
gress.  This  draft  pleased  Adams  so  well  that  he  used  it  as  it 
stood  with  the  exception  of  a  single  clause.  That,  however,  was 
one  of  the  most  important.  The  draft  as  prepared  by  the  cau- 


THE  CEISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  217 

cus  declared  that  to  send  another  minister  to  France  would  be 
an  act  of  humiliation,  to  which  the  United  States  ought  not  to 
submit,  save  in  a  necessity  which  did  not  then  exist;  adding 
that  if  France  should  send  a  minister  he  would  be  "received 
with  honor  and  treated  with  candor."  Adams  struck  this  out 
and  instead  spoke  as  follows: 

"But  in  demonstrating  by  our  conduct  that  we  do  not  fear 
war  in  the  necessary  protection  of  our  rights  and  honor,  we  shall 
give  no  room  to  infer  that  we  abandon  the  desire  of  peace.  An 
efficient  preparation  for  war  can  alone  insure  peace.  It  is  peace 
that  we  have  uniformly  and  perseveringly  cultivated;  and  har 
mony  between  us  and  France  may  be  restored  at  her  option. 
But  to  send  another  minister  without  more  determined  assur 
ances  that  he  would  be  received,  would  be  an  act  of  humiliation 
to  which  the  United  States  ought  not  to  submit.  It  must  there 
fore  be  left  to  France,  if  she  is  indeed  desirous  of  accommoda 
tion,  to  take  the  requisite  steps. 

' '  The  United  States  will  steadily  observe  the  maxims  by  which 
they  have  hitherto  been  governed.  They  will  respect  the  sacred 
rights  of  embassy.  And  with  a  sincere  disposition  on  the  part 
of  France  to  desist  from  hostility,  to  make  reparation  for  the  in 
juries  heretofore  inflicted  upon  our  commerce,  and  to  do  justice 
in  the  future,  there  will  be  no  obstacle  to  the  restoration  of  a 
friendly  intercourse.  In  making  to  you  this  declaration,  I  give 
pledge  to  France  and  to  the  world  that  the  executive  authority 
of  this  country  still  adheres  to  the  humane  and  pacific  policy 
which  has  invariably  governed  its  proceedings,  in  conformity  with 
the  wishes  of  the  other  branches  of  the  Government,  and  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  But  considering  the  late  manifesta 
tions  of  her  policy  toward  foreign  nations,  I  deem  it  a  duty  de 
liberately  and  solemnly  to  declare  my  opinion,  that,  whether. we 
negotiate  with  her  or  not,  vigorous  preparations  for  war  will  be 
alike  indispensable.  These  alone  will  give  us  an  equal  treaty 
and  insure  its  observation." 

These  were  worthy  and  statesmanlike  utterances,  but  they  did 
not  please  the  extreme  Federalists,  who  wished  to  provoke 
France  into  declaring  war,  and  the  making  of  them  widened 
the  breach  between  the  President  and  his  party.  But  he  was 
resolute.  Advices  from  Murray  confirmed  his  belief  that  France 


218  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  ready  to  negotiate,  and  at  last,  in  February,  1799,  Murray 
sent  an  official  despatch  from  Talleyrand  to  Pichon,  explicitly 
saying  that  if  the  United  States  would  send  another  minister  to 
negotiate  for  the  settlement  of  the  differences  between  the  two 
countries,  he  would  be  "received  with  the  regard  due  to  the 
representative  of  a  free,  powerful,  and  independent  nation." 
This  was  a  fine  vindication  of  Adams's  message  to  Congress  in 
the  preceding  summer,  with  its  threat  not  to  send  another  min 
ister  until  he  had  received  the  precise  assurances  which  Talley 
rand  now  gave,  and  also  of  his  later  policy  in  his  address  to 
Congress  as  well  as  in  listening  to  Dr.  Logan.  On  February  18, 
1799,  therefore,  he  sent  to  the  Senate  the  nomination  of  Wil 
liam  Vans  Murray  to  be  minister  to  France  as  soon  as  the 
French  government  should  give  public  and  official  assurances 
that  it  would  properly  receive  him  and  would  appoint  a  minister 
of  equal  rank  to  treat  with  him. 

At  this  the  Federalist  enemies  of  the  President  were  furious. 
The  secretary  of  state  himself  declared  that  they  were  all 
"shocked  and  grieved."  Another,  Sedgwick,  the  speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  declared  that  "had  the  foulest  heart 
and  the  ablest  head  in  the  world  been  permitted  to  select  the 
most  embarrassing  and  ruinous  measure,  perhaps  it  would  have 
been  the  one  which  has  been  adopted."  The  Federalist  sen 
ators  determined  to  vote  against  Murray's  confirmation,  and 
were  doubtless  able  to  defeat  it.  Thereupon  Adams  withdrew  it 
and  substituted  the  nomination  of  a  commission  of  three,  con 
sisting  of  Murray,  Oliver  Ellsworth,  the  chief  justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  Patrick  Henry.  On  account  of  his  ad 
vanced  age  Henry  declined,  and  W.  R.  Davis,  Governor  of  North 
Carolina,  was  substituted.  The  three  nominations  were  then 
ratified  by  the  Senate,  strangely  enough  Murray  being  the  only 
one  who  obtained  a  unanimous  vote. 

Early  in  May,  1799,  Talleyrand  formally  and  officially  gave 
the  assurance  which  Adams  had  stipulated,  but  unfortunately, 
in  his  irritation,  coupled  with  it  some  insulting  references  to 
what  he  deemed  the  disingenuousness  and  captiousness  of  the 
Americans.  This  gave  Pickering  and  the  others  a  chance  to 
work  for  delay.  They  at  first  urged  that  Talleyrand's  assur 
ances  were  not  satisfactory.  Adams  overruled  this  and  ordered 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  219 

the  instructions  for  the  three  envoys  to  be  prepared.  Picker 
ing  deliberately  delayed  doing  so  until,  more  than  a  month  later, 
there  was  a  change  of  government  in  France  which  put  Talley 
rand  out  of  office ;  whereupon  Adams  himself  assented  to  further 
delay.  At  the  middle  of  October  the  cabinet  and  its  allies,  led 
by  Hamilton  himself,  made  a  final  effort  to  prevent  the  sending 
of  the  mission.  But  Adams  quietly  took  the  matter  into  his 
own  hands,  overruled  his  secretaries,  and  ordered  a  frigate  to 
be  detailed  to  convey  the  commissioners  to  France.  They  set 
sail  on  November  5. 

When  the  envoys  reached  Paris  they  found  a  most  salutary 
change  in  the  French  government.  The  Directory  had  fallen 
and  Bonaparte  was  supreme.  They  were  promptly  and  courte 
ously  received  and  negotiations  were  begun.  These  were  not 
expeditious.  The  French  government  was  overwhelmed  with 
business,  and  the  American  question  was  intricate  and  formid 
able.  Nevertheless  steady  progress  was  made,  and  on  Septem 
ber  30,  1800,  the  treaty  was  signed  and  Davis  brought  home  its 
text  for  ratification.  The  treaty  did  away  with  the  old  treaty 


of  17lSf  which  bound  America  to  France  as  an  ally,  and  which 
our  Congress  had  already  voted  to  abrogate.  But  in  return  for 
that  concession  Bonaparte  insisted  upon  our  releasing  France 
from  all  responsibility  for  the  American  vessels  which  had  been 
seized.  This  was  unsatisfactory  to  America,  but  it  was  ac 
cepted.  The  Senate,  under  Federalist  control,  ratified  the  treaty 
for  a  term  of  eight  years  and  reserved  the  right  subsequently 
to  claim  indemnity.  But  a  year  later,  when  the  Federalists 
were  out  of  power,  the  treaty  was  ratified  unconditionally. 
France,  of  course,  never  paid  for  the  vessels  she  had  seized. 

The  formal  war  was  averted  and  the  informal  but  destructive 
war  which  had  been  raging  for  two  years  was  ended.  It  was  a 
noble  achievement.  Adams  himself  regarded  his  sending  of  the 
mission  to  France  as  the  most  meritorious  and  disinterested  ac 
tion  of  his  life,  and  desired  that  upon  his  tombstone  should  be 
engraved  as  his  sole  epitaph  the  words:  "Here  lies  John 
Adams,  who  took  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  the  peace 
with  France  in  the  year  1800."  But  thus  also  Adams's  political 
career  was  ended,  and  so  was  the  effective  existence  of  the  Fed 
eralist  party.  For  the  revolt  of  the  Hamiltonians  against 


220  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Adams  not  only  prevented  his  reelection  to  the  Presidency;  it 
destroyed  the  party  itself.  We  may  add,  with  gratification,  that 
it  marked  the  abrupt  and  lasting  decline  of  factionalism  as  a 
material  force  in  the  conduct  of  our  foreign  affairs.  Never  be 
fore  had  that  passion  been  carried  to  so  high  and  dangerous  a 
pitch  as  in  the  fight  over  the  French  missions.  Never  had  its 
menace  to  the  welfare  of  the  country  been  so  great.  The  people 
saw  this  and  realized  its  import,  and  decided  that  they  would 
have  no  more  of  it.  From  that  time  forward  there  was  an 
increasing  degree  of  unity  in  our  attitude  toward  the  outside 
world;  or  if  faction  ever  did  assert  itself,  it  was  impotent  for 
more  than  its  own  discredit  and  defeat. 

There  arose,  however,  out  of  these  factional  contests  a  note 
worthy  episode  in  domestic  legislation .  which  had  a  strong  and 
direct  relationship  to  our  foreign  affairs.  This  was  the  enact 
ment  of  a  group  of  laws  dealing  with  naturalization,  with  the 
status  of  aliens  in  the  United  States  in  peace  and  war,  and  with 
the  publishing  of  seditious  libels  upon  the  Government.  The 
provocation  was  strong.  Americans  were  justly  indignant  at 
the  political  activity  of  newly  landed  aliens,  at  the  intrigues 
and  corruption  which  agents  of  foreign  countries  were  flagrantly 
conducting,  and  at  the  monstrous  calumnies  upon  public  men 
with  which  the  press  teemed.  Chief  Justice  McKean  of  Penn 
sylvania  said  of  this  last-named  evil,  that  "  every  one  who  has 
in  him  the  sentiments  of  either  a  Christian  or  a  gentleman  can 
not  but  be  highly  offended  at  the  envenomed  scurrility  that  has 
raged  in  pamphlets  and  newspapers,  insomuch  that  libeling  has 
become  a  sort  of  national  crime,  and  distinguishes  us  not  only 
from  all  the  States  around  us  but  from  the  whole  civilized  world. 
Our  satire  has  been  nothing  but  ribaldry  and  billingsgate;  the 
contest  has  been  who  could  call  names  in  the  greatest  variety 
of  phrases,  who  could  mangle  the  greatest  number  of  characters, 
or  who  would  excel  in  the  magnitude  and  virulence  of  lies. 
Hence  the  honor  of  families  has  been  strained,  the  highest  posts 
rendered  cheap  and  vile  in  the  sight  of  the  people,  and  the 
greatest  services  and  virtue  blasted. ' '  There  was  beyond  doubt 
urgent  need  of  the  abatement  of  these  evils. 

A  new  naturalization  law  was  first  enacted,  requiring  an  alien 
to  live  in  this  country  fourteen  years  before  he  could  become  a 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  221 

citizen,  and  also  to  give  formal  notice  of  his  intention  to  apply 
for  citizenship  five  years  in  advance.  There  were  many  Fed 
eralists  who  would  have  prohibited  naturalization  altogether,  but 
for  fear  that  such  action  would  not  be  constitutional.  The 
law  also  required  all  aliens  to  report  themselves  to  registry  of 
ficers  and  be  enrolled,  so  that  the  state  department  would  have 
a  complete  roster  of  them.  Next  came  a  law  applicable  to  aliens 
domiciled  in  this  country  in  time  of  peace.  It  gave  the  Presi 
dent  authority  to  expel  from  the  country  any  alien  whom  he1 
might  judge  to  be  dangerous  to  the  public  welfare  and  safety, 
or  whom  he  might  suspect  of  treasonable  or  secret  machinations 
against  this  country ;  and  every  person  thus  expelled  who  should 
be  found  trespassing  upon  United  States  territory  was  to  be 
imprisoned  for  not  less  than  three  years  and  forever  excluded 
from  citizenship.  Another  act  dealt  with  aliens  in  time  of  war. 
It  gave  the  President  power  to  arrest,  imprison,  and  expel  all 
adult  males  who  were  citizens  or  subjects  or  any  power  with 
which  we  were  at  war.  These  two  alien  acts  were  mild  in  com 
parison  with  the  laws  which  were  at  that  time  in  force  in  France 
and  other  European  lands;  but  they  were  widely  regarded  here 
as  in  conflict  with  American  principles  of  liberty,  and  they  cer 
tainly  invested  the  President  with  too  autocratic  power.  These 
alien  laws  were  enacted  for  a  term  of  only  two  years,  and  no  ac 
tion  was  ever  taken  under  them.  But  they  had  the  effect  of  cre 
ating  a  panic  among  Frenchmen  residing  here  and  of  causing 
many  of  them  to  leave  the  country. 

The  sedition  act  was  also  a  temporary  measure.  It  imposed 
a  heavy  fine  or  imprisonment  upon  all  persons  who  unlawfully 
conspired  or  combined  to  oppose  any  measure  of  the  Govern 
ment,  to  impede  the  operation  of  any  law  of  the  United  States, 
or  to  intimidate  any  federal  officer  or  prevent  him  from  doing 
his  duty.  It  prescribed  a  heavy  fine,  or  imprisonment,  also,  for 
the  publication  in  any  way  of  any  false,  scandalous,  or  malicious 
utterance  against  the  Government  or  Congress  or  the  President, 
or  anything  calculated  to  stir  up  sedition,  or  to  aid  and  abet 
the  hostile  designs  of  any  foreign  nation  against  the  United 
States.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  magnitude  of  the  evils 
against  which  this  act  was  aimed.  We  have  already  considered 
the  infamous  intrigues  of  Wilkinson  and  other  renegades  and 


222  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

traitors,  and  have  recalled  the  characterization  of  current  libels 
by  an  eminent  judge,  whose  words  were  not  in  the  least  exag 
gerated.  But  the  law  was  so  drafted  as  to  make  it  easy  to  use 
it  for  purposes  of  political  persecution,  and  it  was  in  fact  thus 
used,  and  those  who  were  prosecuted  under  it  were  popularly 
regarded  as  martyrs.  Our  present  interest  in  the  acts  arises 
from  the  fact  that  they  were  an  outgrowth  of  our  foreign  rela 
tions;  that,  severe  as  they  were,  they  provoked  little  remon 
strance  from  other  lands;  and  that,  oppressive  and  reactionary 
as  they  seemed  to  most  Americans,  and  justly  as  they  have  been 
generally  condemned,  they  were  on  the  whole  more  liberal  than 
the  laws  of  European  countries  on  the  same  subjects. 

While  all  this  sound  and  fury  prevailed  between  the  United 
States  on  the  one  hand  and  France  and  Great  Britain  on  the 
other,  a  noteworthy  treaty  was  made  between  this  country  and 
Prussia,  in  substitution  for  that  of  1785,  which  expired  by  its 
own  limitations  in  1796.  The  new  treaty  of  amity  and  com 
merce  was  negotiated  in  1799  by  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  was 
appointed  minister  in  June,  1797;  it  was  signed  on  July  11, 
1799,  was  ratified  by  the  Senate,  and  was  proclaimed  in  force  on 
November  4,  1800.  Like  the  former  convention  negotiated  by 
Franklin,  it  took  advanced  and  elevated  ground  on  the  subject 
of  neutrality.  It  was  agreed  that  in  case  of  war,  private  mer 
chandise  of  contraband,  including  arms,  ammunition,  and  mili 
tary  supplies  of  every  kind,  should  not  be  subject  to  confiscation 
when  captured  at  sea.  It  might  be  detained  or  appropriated  to 
the  uses  of  the  captor,  but  it  must  be  paid  for  at  full  value,  and 
the  vessel  carrying  it  must  be  permitted  to  proceed  on  her  voy 
age  without  further  detention  than  was  necessary  for  the  re 
moval  of  contraband  goods.  Privateering  was  forbidden  under 
pain  of  punishment  as  piracy.  Prisoners  of  war  were  not  to  be 
sent  into  remote  exile,  nor  confined  in  loathsome  dungeons  like 
the  prison-ships  of  the  Revolution,  but  were  to  be  humanely 
treated.  There  were  also  enlightened  stipulations  concerning 
the  examination  of  ships'  papers,  the  visiting  of  neutral  ships, 
embargoes,  seizures,  prizes,  asylum,  and  other  such  matters,  far  in 
advance  of  the  common  practice  of  the  world  at  that  time,  and 
all  going  to  mark  a  decided  advance  in  international  law.  It 
is  not,  indeed,  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  vindication  of  neutral 


THE  CRISIS  OF  NATIONALITY  223 

rights  at  sea,  and  in  the  amelioration  of  the  hardships  of  naval 
warfare,  both  to  neutrals  and  to  the  belligerents  themselves,  the 
best  impulses  of  the  world  and  the  best  achievements  of  the  last 
century  and  a  quarter  had  their  origin  in  these  conventions  be 
tween  the  country  of  Washington  and  the  country  of  Frederick 
the  Great. 

This  period  of  our  history  was  marked  with  an  attempt  on 
the  part  of  Russia  to  establish  treaty  relations  with  us ;  not  ap 
parently  because  of  any  regard  for  America,  but  in  order  to 
complete  the  isolation  of  France.  The  Russian  ambassador  in 
London,  Count  Worontzoff,  addressed  himself  to  the  American 
minister  there,  Rufus  King,  in  November,  1798,  with  proposals 
for  a  commercial  treaty,  and  with  an  offer  of  assistance  to 
America  in  securing  a  similar  treaty  with  Turkey.  King  made 
a  discreetly  noncommittal  reply,  and  reported  to  the  Washing 
ton  government  that  he  did  not  know  whether  the  Russian  am 
bassador  had  spoken  on  his  own  authority  only  or  under  orders 
from  his  government.  The  President  assumed  that  the  latter 
was  the  case,  and  at  once  nominated  King  to  be  a  special  minis 
ter  for  negotiating  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce  with  Rus 
sia,  and  gave  him  detailed  instructions  regarding  it.  King  made 
this  known  in  due  time  to  Worontzoff,  who  replied  that  he  would 
have  to  consult  his  government  on  the  matter.  Meantime  it 
came  to  King's  ears  that  Great  Britain  and  Russia  were  plan 
ning  to  prevent  all  trade  of  neutral  nations  with  France,  and 
that  the  United  States  was  expected  to  join  them  in  the  under 
taking.  This  was  substantially  confirmed  in  June,  1799,  when 
Worontzoff  told  King  that  Russia  was  ready  to  make  a  com 
mercial  treaty  with  America,  provided  that  this  country  would 
adopt  toward  France  an  attitude  and  course  of  conduct  satis 
factory  to  Russia,  and  provided  also  that  the  negotiations  could 
be  conducted  at  St.  Petersburg  or  at  Philadelphia.  King  re 
plied  that  the  United  States  was  determined  to  make  peace  with 
France  and  that  he  was  empowered  to  negotiate  only  in  London. 
At  that  the  whole  matter  was  dropped.  Russia  would  make  a 
treaty  only  if  America  would  become  a  tail  to  the  European 
kite,  and  America  would  agree  to  no  such  arrangement. 

A  treaty  of  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation  was  made  with 
Tunis  in  1797,  it  being  negotiated  through  the  intermediation 


224  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  Joseph  Stephen  Fanin,  a  French  merchant  residing  in  Tunis, 
who  was  then  the  American  charge  d  'affaires,  and  signed  by  Wil 
liam  Eaton  and  James  Leander  Cathcart,  commissioners  ap 
pointed  by  the  President.  This  treaty  proclaimed  peace  and 
friendship,  forbade  the  further  molestation  of  American  com 
merce  by  what  were  frankly  described  as  "the  corsairs  of  Tu 
nis,"  and  in  general  established  a  civilized  modus  vivendi  be 
tween  the  two  nations;  though  the  actual  fulfilment  of  such 
principles  was  deferred  to  a  later  date.  If  to  these  we  add  the 
adoption  of  an  article  explanatory  of  a  part  of  Jay's  treaty  of 
1794  between  America  and  Great  Britain,  in  March,  1798,  we 
complete  the  list  of  diplomatic  transactions  during  the  adminis 
tration  of  John  Adams.  This  article  merely  authorized  a  com 
mission  created  under  the  treaty  to  designate  the  source  of  the 
St.  Croix  River. 

The  close  of  Adams's  administration  ended  an  era  of  Amer 
ican  history,  in  foreign  relations  as  well  as  in  domestic  affairs. 
At  its  conclusion  we  still  had  few  treaties  with  other  nations, 
and  few  ministers  accredited  to  their  governments.  The  triple 
commission  had  done  its  work  in  France.  Young  John  Quincy 
Adams  had  served  in  Portugal  and  then  in  Prussia,  and  had 
been  recalled  at  his  own  request,  leaving  the  Prussian  mission 
vacant.  Rufus  King  of  New  York  was  minister  to  Great  Brit 
ain.  Murray  was  in  Holland,  William  Smith  of  South  Caro 
lina  had  succeeded  Adams  in  Portugal,  and  David  Humphreys 
of  Connecticut  was  in  Spain.  Russia  had  not  yet  received  an 
American  minister,  nor  was  one  accredited  to  any  other  land. 
After  twenty-five  years  of  proclaimed  and  eighteen  years  of  ac 
knowledged  independence,  and  after  twelve  years  of  constitu 
tional  establishment,  we  were  still  a  novice  and  almost  a 
stranger  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 


IX 

COMPLETE  NATIONALITY 


fTlHE  change  from  the  Presidency  of  John  Adams  to  that  of 
J[  Thomas  Jefferson,  in  1801,  was  in  some  respects  the  most 
remarkable  political  change  in  the  history  of  the  United  States. 
It  was  much  more  than  a  change  from  one  party  to  another, 
from  Federalist  to  Republican  or  Democratic.  It  was  at  least 
in  theory  a  radical  change  of  governmental  policy,  and  that  in 
foreign  at  least  as  much  as  in  domestic  affairs.  It  was,  in  theory, 
a  change  from  Anglican  to  Gallican;  and  from  what  in  later 
years  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  a  strong  or  a  "jingo" 
policy  to  one  of  peace  and  nonparticipation  in  the  affairs  of  the 
rest  of  the  world.  Jefferson's  own  phrases  have  become  his 
toric:  " Peace,  commerce,  and  honest  friendship  with  all;  en 
tangling  alliances  with  none." 

But  the  strangest  feature  of  this  epochal  change  was  the  lack 
of  radical  change,  excepting  in  Jefferson  himself.  For  in  a 
very  short  time,  as  we  shall  see,  he  completely  reversed  every 
item  of  his  foreign  policy,  and  adopted  and  maintained  the  pol 
icy  of  those  whom  he  had  been  most  bitterly  opposing.  From 
being  a  Gallican  he  became  an  intense  Anglican;  from  opposing 
"entangling  alliances"  he  became  an  advocate  of  them;  and 
from  being  an  apostle  of  peace,  almost  of  peace  at  any  price,  he 
became  the  truculent  champion  of  war,  almost  of  war  at  any  cost. 
Having  once  opposed  and  condemned  Hamilton's  conception  of 
American  domination  of  the  continent,  he  out-Hamiltoned  Ham 
ilton  as  the  propagandist  of  the  "manifest  destiny"  of  the 
United  States  to  "whip  all  creation." 

Jefferson,  of  course,  dispensed  with  the  services  of  his  prede 
cessor's  cabinet  ministers,  and  also  of  his  foreign  ministers,  and 
filled  their  places  with  his  own  appointees.  And  whereas  both 
Washington  and  Adams  had  aimed  at  and  had  largely  achieved 
nonpartizanship  in  these  offices,  filling  them  with  men  of  either 

VOL.  1—15  225 


226  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

party  indifferently  on  the  basis  of  their  eligibility  and  merit, 
Jefferson  filled  them  from  the  ranks  of  his  own  party  followers. 
His  secretary  of  state,  who  was  to  have  under  him  the  conduct  of 
foreign  relations,  was  James  Madison,  a  man  of  spotless  integ 
rity,  of  exceptional  scholarship,  and  of  persuasive  eloquence. 
A  dozen  years  before  he  had  been  the  associate  of  Hamilton  and 
Jay  in  advocating  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  and  at  that 
time  was  apparently  a  stalwart  Federalist.  But  he  had  gone 
over  to  the  Anti-Federalist  side,  had  become  an  ardent  Galli- 
can,  and  was  in  all  things  Jefferson's  most  loyal  and  devoted 
follower.  His  weak  point  was,  that  he  had  no  diplomatic  ex 
perience  whatever,  his  public  life  having  thus  far  been  spent 
in  Congress.  But  that  really  mattered  little,  for  Jefferson  in 
an  exceptional  degree  was  his  own  secretary  of  state.  More 
perhaps  than  any  other  President  we  have  ever  had,  he  was  the 
autocrat  of  his  administration,  giving  his  cabinet  ministers  little 
or  no  initiative,  and  being  himself  the  author  of  all  important 
measures.  This  autocracy  of  his  was  least  marked  in  respect 
to  the  treasury  department,  since  he  probably  realized  his  own 
weakness  as  a  financier,  and  it  was  most  marked  in  foreign  af 
fairs,  of  which,  because  of  his  experience  as  secretary  of  state 
and  as  minister  to  France,  he  regarded  himself,  and  not  un 
justly,  as  a  past  master.  His  secretary  of  the  treasury  was 
Albert  Gallatin,  who  was  comparable  with  Hamilton  himself  in 
ability;  of  war,  Henry  Dearborn;  of  the  navy,  Robert  Smith; 
his  postmaster-general  was  Gideon  Granger;  and  his  attorney- 
general  was  Levi  Lincoln.  The  only  important  names  on  the  list 
were  those  of  Madison  and  Gallatin. 

He  established  no  new  foreign  missions.  But  he  sent  Robert 
R.  Livingston  of  New  York  as  minister  to  France.  Livingston 
had  been  a  member  of  the  committee  of  the  Continental  Con 
gress  which  drafted  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  sec 
retary  for  foreign  affairs  under  the  Congress  of  the  Confedera 
tion;  in  which  latter  place  French  intriguers  claimed,  probably 
without  much  truth,  to  have  him  under  their  control.  Wash 
ington  had  offered  him  the  mission  to  France  in  1794,  but  he 
had  declined  it.  Perhaps  his  greatest  service  to  the  nation  and 
to  the  world  was  his  invaluable  encouragement  and  aid  to 
Robert  Fulton  in-  perfecting  the  steamboat.  To  Great  Britain, 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  227 

Jefferson  sent  James  Monroe,  who  had  been  so  unsatisfactory  a 
minister  to  France  and  had  been  recalled  by  Washington  in 
disgrace.  The  mission  to  Spain  was  filled  with  Charles  Pinck- 
ney  of  South  Carolina,  a  man  of  experience  and  ability,  a  worthy 
member  of  one  of  the  most  distinguished  Carolinian  families 
of  revolutionary  times.  These  three  were  the  only  foreign  rep 
resentatives  sent  out  by  Jefferson,  the  missions  to  Holland, 
Prussia,  and  Portugal  being  left  vacant. 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  Jefferson  and  his  colleagues  to 
enter  office  at  a  time  of  peace  and  friendliness  in  all  our  foreign 
relations.  Washington  had  established  a  modus  vivendi  with 
Spain,  which  still  prevailed,  and  had  effected  full  treaty  rela 
tions  with  Great  Britain.  Adams  had  fought  successfully  an 
undeclared  war  with  France,  and  had  sacrificed  the  remainder 
of  his  political  career  in  his  noble  endeavor  to  prevent  an  open 
declaration  of  war  and  to  restore  peace;  so  that  the  first  diplo 
matic  act  of  Jefferson's  administration  was  to  exchange  the 
ratifications  of  the  treaty  with  France,  which  his  predecessor 
had  negotiated.  There  were,  however,  in  respect  to  various 
foreign  powers  grave  and  complicated  problems  which  had  ex 
isted  for  many  years;  and  which  despite  postponement  were 
more  and  more  exigent  in  their  demands  for  ultimate  solution. 

The  first  of  these  in  point  of  time  was  the  trouble  with  the 
pirates  of  Tripoli.  With  all  the  four  Barbary  powers  we  had 
made  an  agreement  under  which  we  were  securing  a  certain  de 
gree  of  security  for  our  commerce  by  virtue  of  paying  yearly 
tributes  of  blackmail.  But  none  of  them  fully  respected  our 
commercial  rights,  while  Tripoli  openly  ignored  them;  and  it 
became  evident  that  a  settlement  must  be  effected  not  by  the 
state  department  but  by  the  navy.  And  here  arose  one  of  Jef 
ferson's  self -reversals.  Hitherto  he  had  literally  hated  the 
navy.  He  did  not  want  the  United  States  to  have  a  real  navy 
at  all.  A  few  gunboats,  which  could  be  dragged  up  out  of  the 
water  and  stored  somewhere  under  cover,  would  in  his  opinion 
be  sufficient.  When  he  became  President  he  found  the  seven 
fine  frigates  which  had  been  built  in  the  preceding  administra 
tion,  and  he  quickly  laid  up  five  of  them  at  the  Washington 
navy  yard,  out  of  commission.  But  very  soon  he  was  compelled 
to  send  the  ships  into  vigorous  action.  The  Pasha  of  Tripoli 


228  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  at  this  time  receiving  $83,000  a  year  in  tribute,  or  black 
mail,  from  the  United  States.  But  he  regarded  this  as  too  little 
in  comparison  with  what  the  piratical  rulers  of  Morocco,  Al 
giers  and  Tunis  received,  and  accordingly  he  began  making 
trouble.  In  May,  1801,  he  declared  war  against  the  United 
States  by  cutting  down  the  flagstaff  of  the  American  consulate. 
Some  weeks  later  the  American  frigate  George  Washington 
came  home  from  the  Mediterranean  with  the  news  of  that  per 
formance,  and  also  with  the  news  of  other  outrages  and  insults 
which  had  been  heaped  upon  the  American  flag  and  upon  that 
ship  by  the  Dey  of  Algiers.  Jefferson  had  already  sent  two 
frigates  and  a  schooner  to  those  waters,  and  on  the  receipt  of 
these  reports  he  sent  another  frigate.  On  August  1  a  clash  oc 
curred,  when  one  of  the  American  ships  captured  a  Tripolitan 
cruiser.  But  it  did  not  keep  it  as  a  prize.  Jefferson  was  a 
stickler  for  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution,  and  that  in 
strument  gave  to  Congress  alone  the  power  to  declare  war. 
To  seize  and  to  keep  a  vessel  as  a  prize  would  be  an  act  of  war, 
and  that,  he  thought,  he  had  no  right  to  commit  without  formal 
declaration  by  Congress.  So  he  instructed  the  naval  com 
manders  on  seizing  a  ship  belonging  to  one  of  those  powers  to 
dismantle  it,  to  throw  its  guns  and  ammunition  overboard,  and 
then  to  let  it  go  again  with  just  enough  sail  to  enable  it  to  reach 
the  nearest  home  port.  That,  he  thought,  would  not  be  waging 
war,  as  the  taking  of  prizes  would.  In  the  case  of  this  one  Tri 
politan  vessel  the  process  was  effective,  for  it  gave  the  pirates 
a  wholesome  fear  of  American  warships  and  constrained  them 
to  mend  their  ways  for  a  time. 

But  in  1803  it  was  found  necessary  to  wage  a  vigorous  cam 
paign,  with  all  the  characteristics  of  actual  war  though  without 
a  formal  declaration  by  Congress.  This  was  conducted  with 
great  gallantry  by  Preble,  Bainbridge,  Decatur,  and  other  com 
manders.  A  land  expedition  was  also  organized,  though  with 
out  official  authority,  which  carried  the  American  flag  across 
five  hundred  miles  of  Libyan  desert,  overran  half  of  Tripoli,  and 
captured  the  important  city  of  Derne.  That  brought  the  Pasha 
of  Tripoli  to  his  senses,  and  he  agreed  to  release  the  American 
captives  whom  he  held  for  a  ransom,  and  thereafter  to  waive  all 
tribute  and  to  respect  American  commerce.  This  treaty  of  peace 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  229 

and  amity  was  made  in  1805.  It  was  not,  however,  until  years 
afterward,  in  1815,  that  our  relations  with  the  Barbary  States 
were  put  upon  a  permanently  satisfactory  basis.  It  was  then 
that  Decatur,  with  a  veteran  squadron  from  the  War  of  1812, 
revisited  that  coast  and  under  the  muzzles  of  his  cannon  com 
pelled  the  piratical  despots  to  sign  treaties  in  which  there  was 
no  hint  of  tribute  or  blackmail.  It  was  in  1815  that  a  new  treaty 
of  peace  and  amity  was  made  with  Algiers,  with  the  abolition 
of  the  hateful  and  humiliating  tribute  which  we  had  regularly 
paid  down  to  that  time. 

The  next  matter  to  be  taken  up  from  the  arrears  of  the  former 
administrations  was  the  dispute  with  Spain  over  the  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  River,  of  which  we  have  already  had  an  ac 
count  down  to  the  making  of  a  treaty  by  Thomas  Pinckney  in 
1795.  Under  that  treaty,  it  will  be  recalled,  the  United  States 
had  the  right  to  navigate  the  river,  and  also  to  use  New  Orleans 
as  a  port  of  deposit  and  transfer.  That  treaty  was  made  for  only 
three  years.  At  the  end  of  that  term  it  was  renewed  for  three 
years  more,  but  it  became  increasingly  evident  that  it  could  not 
be  permanently  maintained.  Spain  had  from  the  first  been 
seeking  a  way  to  get  rid  of  it;  and  she  subjected  our  enjoyment 
of  its  privileges  to  increasing  annoyances  which  became  little 
short  of  intolerable.  It  became  obvious  that  a  radical  settlement 
of  some  sort  would  have  speedily  to  be  made,  and  the  impression 
gained  weight  that  such  a  settlement,  to  be  permanent  and  satis 
factory,  would  have  to  be  on  the  basis  which  Hamilton  had  long 
before  suggested,  namely,  the  proprietorship  of  the  territory 
fronting  upon  the  river. 

That  territory  was  known  as  Louisiana.  It  comprised  some 
thing  like  one  third  of  the  entire  present  area  of  the  United 
States.  It  extended  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  northward  to  the 
Canada  line.  It  stretched  east  and  west  from  the  Mississippi 
River  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  At  the  south  it  comprised  a 
small  area  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  river,  thus  giving  it  sov 
ereign  control  of  both  banks  of  that  stream,  and  it  extended 
westward  along  the  Gulf  coast,  some  said  to  the  Sabine  River, 
some  to  the  Nueces,  and  some  to  the  Rio  Grande.  That  was  a 
boundary  dispute  of  which  more  was  to  be  heard  in  after  years. 
By  virtue  of  original  discovery,  exploration,  and  settlement  it 


230  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  a  French  possession.  La  Salle,  Iberville,  and  Bienville  had 
planted  there  the  lily  flag  of  the  Bourbons,  and  in  1718  New 
Orleans  had  been  founded,  on  the  lower  part  of  the  Mississippi, 
where  both  shores  of  that  river  were  the  property  of  France. 
For  many  years  the  colony  led  a  comparatively  peaceful  life. 
It  was  too  far  removed  from  the  North  Atlantic  coast  to  be  much 
involved  in  the  wars  which  raged  in  New  England  and  Canada. 
But  in  1763,  at  the  end  of  the  French  and  Indian  War,  France 
ceded  it  to  Spain,  partly  to  avoid  its  being  taken  by  the  triumph 
ant  British  and  Americans  who  were  taking  all  else  that  France 
had  on  this  continent,  and  partly  to  compensate  Spain  for  the 
losses  which  she  had  suffered  through  her  efforts  to  aid  France 
in  that  war.  It  remained  Spanish  to  the  end  of  that  century, 
and  thus  gave  Spain  the  opportunity  to  annoy  and  to  embar 
rass  the  United  States  in  the  matter  of  navigating  the  Missis 
sippi. 

There  occurred  at  that  time,  however,  a  series  of  incidents 
which  are  too  much  ignored  in  history,  but  which  had  a  most 
pertinent  bearing  upon  subsequent  events.  When  France  ceded 
Louisiana  to  Spain  in  1763,  it  ceded  the  little  part  of  it  east  of 
the  Mississippi,  on  the  lower  part  of  that  river,  to  Great  Britain 
— all  save  the  island  on  which  stood  the  city  of  New  Orleans. 
That  gave  Great  Britain  ownership  of  the  entire  eastern  shore 
of  the  river,  clear  to  the  Gulf,  with  the  exception  of  the  city  of 
New  Orleans.  France,  moreover,  guaranteed  by  treaty  to  Great 
Britain  the  freedom  of  the  river,  ' '  from  its  source  to  the  sea,  and 
expressly  that  part  which  is  between  the  Island  of  New  Orleans 
and  the  right  bank  of  that  river,  as  well  as  the  passage  both  in 
and  out  of  its  mouth."  That  treaty  should,  of  course,  have 
averted  any  further  dispute  over  the  river,  for  the  United  States, 
in  1783  should  have  succeeded  to  all  the  rights  which  Great 
Britain  had  secured  twenty  years  before.  But  we  must  not  for 
get  the  capacity  of  the  British  government  at  that  time  for 
blundering,  especially  in  American  affairs.  All  of  Florida, 
which  included  the  whole  Gulf  coast  westward  to  Louisiana,  was 
at  that  time  temporarily  transferred  to  Great  Britain  by  Spain, 
in  exchange  for  Cuba.  The  British  government  thereupon 
divided  it  into  two  provinces.  East  Florida  comprised  the  pres 
ent  State  of  Florida.  West  Florida  comprised  the  southern 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  231 

ends  of  what  are  now  the  States  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  and 
also  that  bit  of  Louisiana  east  of  the  big  river.  Then  the  limits 
of  West  Florida  were  extended  northward,  so  as  to  include  the 
east  bank  of  the  Mississippi  as  far  up  as  Natchez. 

In  this  creation  and  enlargement  of  the  province  of  West 
Florida  were  sown  the  seeds  of  trouble.  For  at  the  close  of 
our  revolution  Great  Britain  ceded  the  two  Floridas  back  to 
Spain,  and  Spain  shrewdly  and  not  altogether  unreasonably  in 
sisted  that  she  was  entitled  to  West  Florida,  not  merely  as  it  was 
twenty  years  before  but  as  it  had  now  become  through  the  Brit 
ish  enlargement  of  it.  She  claimed,  that  is  to  say,  possession  of 
the  small  corner  of  Louisiana  east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  of  the 
territory  northward  to  Natchez.  In  the  former  claim,  of  the 
corner  of  Louisiana,  Great  Britain  acquiesced,  and  thus  gave  to 
Spain  both  sides  of  the  Mississippi  River  for  more  than  two 
hundred  miles  up  from  its  mouth.  The  latter  claim,  of  the  lands 
northward  to  Natchez,  was  not  granted,  but  the  territory  in 
question  constituted  the  disputed  Yazoo  lands,  which  under  our 
treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain  were  to  belong  to  us  if  Florida 
was  given  back  to  Spain,  but  to  Great  Britain  if  she  should  re 
tain  possession  of  Florida.  Under  Pinckney's  treaty  of  1795 
Spain  finally  relinquished  the  Yazoo  lands  to  the  United  States, 
but  she  remained  in  possession  of  that  southeastern  corner  of 
Louisiana.  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  agreed  in  their 
treaty  of  peace  that  the  Mississippi  should  be  open  and  free  to 
them  both  throughout  its  entire  course,  according  to  the  French 
and  British  treaty  of  1763.  But  Spain  refused  to  recognize 
the  validity  of  that  agreement,  on  the  ground  of  the  radical 
change  in  conditions  which  had  been  effected  by  her  acquisition 
of  that  corner  of  Louisiana  and  consequently  of  both  banks  of 
the  river. 

There  were  then,  as  indeed  there  still  are,  two  theories  concern 
ing  national  and  international  rights  on  such  a  river.  One  was 
that  the  stream  was  absolutely  owned  and  controlled  by  the 
power  which  owned  its  banks,  so  that  others  could  navigate  it 
only  through  courtesy  and  on  sufferance.  The  other  was,  that 
any  power  which  had  a  frontage  upon  any  part  of  the  river  had 
a  natural  right  to  navigate  all  parts  of  it.  International  law 
has  never  yet  completely  decided  between  the  two,  though  the 


232  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

weight  of  logic  and  of  practice  is  certainly  on  the  side  of  the 
former.  Germany  would  scarcely  concede  that  Russia  had 
a  natural  right  to  send  merchant  ships  and  ships  of  war  up 
and  down  the  Vistula,  across  Prussian  territory;  nor  that  her 
own  shipping  was  entitled  to  navigate  the  Danube,  clear  across 
the  Austro-Hungarian  Empire.  If  there  were  a  navigable  pas 
sage  from  Lake  Champlain  to  the  Hudson,  we  should  scarcely 
admit  the  natural  right  of  Canadian  shipping  to  come  down 
the  Hudson  to  the  sea  without  so  much  as  saying,  "By  your 
leave. "  Such  navigation  of  such  rivers  as  the  St.  Lawrence, 
the  Danube,  and  the  Rhine  is  a  matter  of  treaty  stipulation. 
Technically,  therefore,  Spain  was  in  the  right  and  our  use  of 
the  lower  Mississippi  was  to  be  enjoyed  by  us  as  a  grant  from 
her. 

Hamilton  inclined  to  this  view.  But  he  also  realized  that 
treaty  arrangements  between  the  United  States  and  Spain  would 
not  prove  permanently  satisfactory.  The  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi  was  of  so  great  and  indeed  vital  importance  to  us  that 
it  must  be  not  merely  our  privilege  but  our  right.  To  that  end 
he  at  an  early  date  insisted  that  we  must  acquire  the  Louisiana 
Territory,  so  as  to  own  both  shores  of  the  river  from  its  source 
to  its  mouth;  just  as  we  already  owned  the  Ohio  and  the  Hud 
son.  More  than  that,  he  similarly  advocated  the  acquisition  of 
Florida,  in  order  that  we  might  control  the  narrow  seas  through 
which  commerce  must  pass  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  At 
lantic.  Meantime,  until  such  acquisition  of  territory  could  be 
effected,  he  would  demand  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi, 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  essential.  One  of  his  last  acts,  if 
not  his  very  last,  as  a  member  of  the  Congress  of  the  old  Con 
federation,  was  to  introduce  a  resolution  declaring  that  the  navi 
gation  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  sea  was  a  clear  and  essential 
right  of  the  United  States  and  was  to  be  insisted  upon  and  main-- 
tained  as  such;  which  unfortunately  was  not  adopted.  Again, 
as  secretary  of  the  treasury  in  Washington's  cabinet,  he  de 
clared  that  the  free  use  of  the  river  was  "  essential  to  the 
unity  of  the  empire. ' '  He  was  supremely  the  prophet  of  Ameri 
can  territorial  expansion  to  a  predominant  position  on  the  con 
tinent.  Referring  to  Louisiana  and  Florida,  he  wrote  to  Picker 
ing,  in  the  Adams  administration,  "I  have  long  been  in  the 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  233 

habit  of  considering  the  acquisition  of  those  countries  as  essen 
tial  to  the  permanence  of  the  Union,"  and  in  "The  Federalist" 
he  had  written,  ' '  Our  situation  invites  and  prompts  us  to  aim  at 
an  ascendant  in  American  affairs."  His  idea  was  that  we 
should  occupy  the  continent  from  sea  to  sea,  as  we  do  to-day; 
and  of  course  the  absolute  ownership  of  the  Mississippi  was  es 
sential  to  the  realization  of  that  scheme. 

Jefferson,  Madison,  and  the  Republicans  generally  inclined 
toward  the  other  view,  that  we  had  somehow  a  natural  right  to 
navigate  a  river  which  was  undisputably  a  territorial  water  of 
Spain.  Madison,  indeed,  was  before  Hamilton  himself  in  point 
of  time  in  demanding  the  opening  of  the  Mississippi  to  Ameri 
can  commerce.  During  the  Revolution  he  urged  that  as  an  in 
dispensable  condition  to  the  making  of  any  treaty  with  Spain, 
and  he  resolutely  maintained  that  position  even  after  his  own 
State  of  Virginia  had  relinquished  it.  When  Jay,  in  1786,  pro 
posed  a  treaty  with  Spain  under  which  the  right  to  navigate  the 
river  would  be  temporarily  held  in  abeyance,  Madison  strenu 
ously  opposed  it  and  made  personal  appeals  to  Washington  and 
Lafayette  against  it.  Such  were  the  sentiments  of  the  man  who 
now  had  to  deal  with  the  matter  as  Jefferson 's  secretary  of  state. 
Nor  was  Jefferson  himself  less  insistent  upon  the  opening  of 
the  river.  He,  too,  had  opposed  the  treaty  of  1786  on  that 
ground.  1 1  The  act  which  abandons  it, ' '  he  said,  referring  to  our 
claim  to  navigate  the  Mississippi,  "is  an  act  of  separation  be 
tween  the  eastern  and  western  country."  He  had  in  view,  of 
course,  the  threats  of  secession  which  Kentucky  was  making, 
in  1787,  and  which  he  believed  would  be  fulfilled  if  the  river 
were  not  freely  opened  and  kept  open.  Again,  as  Washington's 
secretary  of  state,  he  argued  that  Spain's  ownership  of  the 
shores  of  the  river  gave  her  no  power  to  close  the  stream  against 
our  commerce,  and  he  warned  the  Spanish  government  that  if  it 
did  not  grant  our  just  demands  for  freedom  of  transit,  it  would 
be  impossible  to  assure  the  forbearance  of  our  western  citizens. 
In  brief,  if  Spain  would  not  open  the  river  peaceably,  we  should 
do  so  with  force  and  arms. 

Upon  the  fundamental  principle,  then,  that  we  must  have  free 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  all  were  agreed.  A  confident  hope 
of  the  maintenance  of  that  principle  had  checked  the  rising  mad- 


234  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ness  of  disaffection  and  secession  in  the  West;  a  madness  of 
which  only  one  permanent  memorial  remains.  To  this  day  there 
stands  in  the  southwestern  corner  of  Missouri  the  city  of  New 
Madrid,  which  was  founded  by  renegade  Americans,  who,  at  the 
incitement  of  Spain,  moved  across  the  river  from  the  United 
States  to  Spanish  soil,  renounced  American  citizenship,  and 
swore  allegiance  to  the  King  of  Spain,  in  order  that  thus  they 
might  obtain  the  right  to  navigate  the  river.  It  is  well  to  keep 
that  disgraceful  name  upon  the  map,  "lest  we  forget,"  as  a  re 
minder  that  Americans  as  well  as  other  peoples  have  at  times 
been  capable  of  declining  to  the  very  nadir  of  pusillanimity, 
baseness,  and  treason. 

All  that  had  passed,  or  at  least  was  for  the  time  held  in  innocu 
ous  abeyance.  But  Spain  was  by  no  means  reconciled  to  the 
state  of  affairs  established  by  the  treaty  of  1785.  At  the  end 
of  the  Revolution  she  had  tried  her  utmost  to  keep  the  United 
States  shut  away  from  any  frontage  upon  the  Mississippi  and 
from  any  direct  contact  with  her  colonies,  and  it  was  now  a 
constant  cause  of  annoyance  and  exasperation  to  have  this  coun 
try  seated  upon  the  eastern  shore  of  the  river,  navigating  it 
freely  through  exclusively  Spanish  territory,  and  actually  using 
Spanish  soil  for  the  purposes  of  a  commercial  landing  and  ship 
ping  place.  The  passage  of  time  did  not  allay  but  rather  deep 
ened  and  intensified  this  resentful  passion,  and  strengthened  the 
resolution  of  Spain  in  some  way  to  get  rid  of  these  hateful  con 
ditions.  Of  course  the  treaty  giving  us  the  use  of  the  river  and 
port  had  to  be  made  when  Pinckney  so  strenuously  demanded 
it,  and  it  had  to  be  renewed  at  the  end  of  three  years.  Spain 
was  not  strong  enough  to  incur  the  danger  of  war  with  America 
which  would  have  been  involved  in  her  refusal.  But  during 
the  existence  of  the  treaty  she  sought  in  every  way  to  make  our 
enjoyment  of  it  as  little  profitable  as  possible,  and  after  it  had 
been  renewed  once  she  determined  that  it  should  not  be  renewed 
a  second  time;  at  any  rate,  not  by  her.  We  must  remember, 
indeed,  that  it  was  only  on  a  showing  of  military  force  by  the 
United  States  that  Spain  fulfilled  that  treaty  at  all.  The  treaty 
was  made  in  1795  and  was  ratified  in  1796,  but  it  was  not  until 
1798,  and  after  the  sending  of  a  detachment  of  United  States 
troops  to  that  region,  that  Spain  withdrew  her  garrison  from 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  235 

Natchez,  relinquished  the  Yazoo  lands  to  this  country,  and 
opened  the  river  fully  to  our  shipping. 

The  plan  adopted  by  Spain  for  getting  out  of  a  distasteful 
situation  was  quite  simple  and  effective.  * '  If  the  Mountain  will 
not  come  to  Mohammed,"  said  the  Arabian  prophet,  "Mo 
hammed  will  go  to  the  Mountain."  If  the  United  States  would 
not  keep  away  from  Spain,  Spain  would  move  away  from  the 
United  States.  She  had  tried  for  years  to  secure  a  buffer  State 
between  herself  and  us  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  had  failed.  The  restless,  inexorable  Americans  had  pushed 
their  way  westward  to  the  Mississippi,  and  southward  almost  to 
the  Gulf,  and  might  at  any  time  go  further  still.  Spain  could 
not  resist  them.  Their  ships  had  gone  around  into  the  Pacific, 
and  they  might  soon  gain  a  foothold  on  the  shores  of  that  sea, 
menacing  her  possessions  in  California  and  Mexico.  Her  only 
recourse  for  safety  was,  therefore,  to  call  in  some  other  great 
power  to  her  aid.  If  she  could  sell  Louisiana  to  some  nation 
which  would  be  sufficiently  powerful  to  hold  it  forever  as  a  bar 
rier  against  the  further  westward  march  of  the  Americans,  she 
could  herself  retire  beyond  the  mountains  and  rest  in  peace  and 
quiet. 

Circumstances  favored  and  facilitated  the  execution  of  this 
plan,  for  France  was  as  ready  and  as  eager  to  repurchase  Louis 
iana  as  Spain  was  to  sell.  France  had  never  been  reconciled  to 
her  loss  of  her  North  American  empire,  and  she  particularly  re 
gretted  the  loss  of  Louisiana,  for  she  realized  the  inestimable 
value  of  that  province  in  either  peace  or  war.  In  peace,  it  was 
capable  of  becoming  one  of  the  richest  and  most  populous  coun 
tries  on  the  globe.  In  war,  it  was  the  key  to  the  entire  continent. 
So  it  was  that  in  the  treaty-making  at  the  end  of  our  Revolution 
France  had  sided  with  Spain  in  trying  to  shut  us  away  from 
the  Mississippi,  hoping  thus  to  keep  the  door  open  for  her  own 
reentry  into  Louisiana.  So  it  was  that  Genet,  on  his  extraordi 
nary  mission  to  this  country,  sought  first  of  all  to  organize  ex 
peditions  for  the  invasion  of  Florida  and  Louisiana,  hoping  by 
the  aid  of  renegade  Americans  to  conquer  those  territories  for 
France.  All  these  efforts  had  failed.  But  now  a  new  and  po 
tent  factor  had  entered  the  problem.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  had 
become  the  practical  autocrat  of  France,  with  unbounded  ambi- 


236  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tion  and  unrivaled  military  genius ;  and  he  had  as  his  aid  Talley 
rand,  one  of  the  most  skilful  and  most  unscrupulous  diplomats 
in  the  world. 

Three  considerations  moved  Bonaparte  to  anticipate  Spanish 
desires  by  making  overtures  for  the  transfer  of  Louisiana  to 
France.  One  was,  the  actual  worth  of  the  territory,  with  its 
priceless  natural  resources  and  its  vast  field  for  colonization.  A 
second  was  its  strategic  utility  in  the  war  to  the  bitter  end,  which 
he  knew  he  had  to  wage  with  England.  He  was  already  plan 
ning  to  recover  Santo  Domingo  as  a  base  of  operations  for  the 
conquest  of  the  West  Indies.  If  he  should  acquire  Louisiana, 
he  could  send  a  fleet  and  an  army  up  the  Mississippi  and  attack 
Canada  at  the  southwest,  and  thus  perhaps  regain  that  country 
and  drive  Great  Britain  out  of  North  America.  The  third  and 
by  no  means  the  least  consideration  was  the  personal  prestige 
which  he  would  gain.  He  was  the  idol  of  the  army,  and  of  the 
republican  part  of  the  populace.  But  he  meant  presently  to  dis 
card  the  mask  of  consul  and  assume  the  crown  of  emperor,  and 
he  wished  to  ingratiate  himself  with  all  the  people  and  to 
strengthen  his  position  in  every  way,  in  order  that  that  great 
usurpation  might  be  favorably  received.  To  that  end,  nothing 
could  be  more  effective  than  for  him  to  regain  Louisiana,  the 
vast  region  which  had  been  won  and  then  lost  by  the  Bourbon 
kings  of  France  and  which  still  bore  the  name  of  the  Grand 
Monarque. 

With  these  ends  in  view,  Bonaparte  and  Talleyrand  found 
little  difficulty  in  inveigling  Spain  into  what  we  might  describe, 
in  the  apt  jargon  of  the  street,  as  the  biggest  bunko  game  in 
history.  They  purposed  deliberately  to  swindle  her  out  of  Louis 
iana,  and  they  achieved  that  purpose.  At  that  time  the  titular 
King  of  Spain  was  Charles  IV,  one  of  the  most  pitiable  speci 
mens  of  weakness  and  unworthiness  that  ever  occupied  a  deca 
dent  throne.  The  real  rulers  of  Spain  were  the  king's  wife, 
Maria  Louisa  of  Parma,  who  was  a  compound  of  Messalina  of 
Rome  and  Catherine  the  Great  of  Russia,  and  her  favorite  para 
mour,  Don  Manuel  Godoy,  who  because  of  his  negotiation  of  a 
peace  treaty  with  France  was  called  the  Prince  of  the  Peace. 
Knowing  the  fondness  of  this  crowned  harlot  for  her  native 
Italy,  Bonaparte  and  Talleyrand  made  her  an  offer  of  an  Italian 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  237 

kingdom  in  exchange  for  Louisiana.  The  kingdom  in  question 
was  Tuscany,  which  Bonaparte  had  conquered  and  annexed  in 
the  French  invasion  of  Italy.  It  was  a  rich  and  splendid  do 
main,  with  more  than  a  million  inhabitants,  one  of  the  finest 
parts  of  all  Italy,  and  Bonaparte's  proposal  was  to  bestow  it 
upon  Louis,  the  prince-presumptive  of  Parma,  who  was  the 
nephew  and  son-in-law  of  the  Spanish  sovereigns,  giving  him 
with  it  the  title  of  King  of  Etruria.  In  return,  France  was  to 
have  Louisiana,  which  she  would  pledge  herself  never  to  alienate 
to  the  United  States  or  any  other  country,  but  to  hold  as  her 
own  forever  as  an  effective  buffer  State  between  the  remaining 
American  possessions  of  Spain  and  the  much-dreaded  and  de 
tested  United  States. 

This  proposition  was  readily  accepted  by  the  queen,  and  by  her 
and  her  lover  the  complaisant  king  was  led  by  the  nose  to  give 
his  assent.  Godoy  did  not,  in  fact,  openly  figure  in  the  transac 
tion.  He  retired  from  the  office  of  prime  minister  for  a  time, 
partly  perhaps  because,  with  all  his  villainies,  he  had  some  de 
gree  of  patriotism  and  did  not  wish  to  appear  a  party  to  what 
he  knew  was  a  bad  bargain  for  Spain,  and  partly  because  he 
was  not  on  good  terms  with  the  French  government  and  could 
not  comfortably  conduct  the  negotiations.  He  therefore  re 
tired  from  office  when  the  negotiations  began,  and  did  not  re 
sume  it  until  their  close.  In  his  absence  the  compact  was  made, 
in  a  secret  treaty  which  was  signed  at  San  Ildefonso  on  October 
1,  1800.  It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  the  treaty  between 
France  and  the  United  States,  composing  their  serious  differ 
ences,  had  been  signed  on  the  very  day  before,  September  30. 
Before  the  ink  was  fairly  dry  on  the  one,  with  the  same  pen 
another  was  signed  which  was  at  least  in  spirit  absolutely  in 
compatible  with  it. 

Spain  and  France  both  exulted  over  the  secrecy  with  which 
the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso  was  made,  a  secrecy  which  was  to 
be  maintained  as  long  as  possible.  In  that,  they  thought  they 
were  repaying  the  United  States  for  making  the  treaty  of  peace 
with  England  in  1783  without  their  knowledge  or  consent,  and 
for  inserting  therein  the  secret  clause  about  the  Yazoo  lands. 
One  feature  of  the  treaty  contained  the  germ  of  much  subse 
quent  trouble.  That  was,  its  failure  to  define  the  boundaries  of 


238  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Louisiana,  that  territory  being  described  simply  as  that  pos 
sessed  by  Spain  and  formerly  possessed  by  France.  There  was 
no  indication  of  the  dividing  line  between  it  and  the  remaining 
Spanish  possessions  at  the  southwest;  whether  that  line  was  the 
Sabine  River  or  the  Rio  Grande.  As  for  the  purchase  price  for 
Louisiana,  the  kingdom  of  Etruria  or  Tuscany,  Bonaparte  never 
delivered  it  to  Spain,  more  than  in  name.  The  pledge  that 
France  would  keep  the  territory  as  her  own  forever  was  speedily 
repudiated.  As  for  the  stipulation  of  secrecy,  it  was  manifestly 
impossible  that  it  should  long  be  observed.  It  was  agreed,  in 
pursuance  of  the  policy  of  secrecy,  that  Spain  should  continue 
in  possession  of  the  territory  and  should  continue  to  administer 
its  government,  just  as  she  had  been  doing  since  1763,  until  such 
time  as  France  was  ready  to  let  the  bargain  be  known  and  to 
take  possession  of  the  country  with  an  adequate  force.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  such  Spanish  occupation  continued  throughout 
all  of  France's  brief  ownership  of  Louisiana. 

For  a  time  the  secret  was  well  kept.  "Within  a  year,  however, 
inklings  of  it  began  to  leak  out.  In  the  latter  part  of  May,  1801, 
Jefferson  wrote  to  Monroe  that  there  was  reason  to  apprehend 
that  Spain  had  ceded  or  was  about  to  cede  both  Louisiana  and 
the  Floridas  to  France;  and  he  added  that  such  a  transaction 
would  be  very  unwise  for  both  of  those  countries,  and  "very 
ominous  to  us."  This  apprehension  was  strengthened  in  the 
fall  of  that  year,  when  in  November  an  expedition  of  thirty 
thousand  soldiers  was  despatched  from  France,  under  the  com 
mand  of  Leclerc,  Bonaparte's  brother-in-law,  for  the  reconquest 
of  Santo  Domingo.  Livingston,  the  American  minister  at  Paris, 
rightly  discerned  and  reported  the  object  of  the  expedition  to  be 
first  to  reestablish  French  sovereignty  in  that  island  and  then, 
with  the  necessary  reinforcements,  to  proceed  to  Louisiana  and 
to  occupy  that  province.  It  was,  moreover,  expected  that  the 
conquest  of  Santo  Domingo  would  be  effected  with  little  trouble 
or  delay.  The  French  assumed  that  Toussaint  1'Ouverture 
could  readily  be  bribed  to  submit  himself  to  their  authority,  or 
if  not  could  easily  be  subdued  by  force.  But  in  that  they  were 
tremendously  disappointed.  Leclerc  succeeded  in  betraying 
Toussaint  to  captivity  and  slow  assassination,  but  that  infamous 
performance  only  roused  the  islanders  to  more  resolute  resist- 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  239 

ance,  with  yellow  fever  as  their  ally.  Within  a  year  less  than 
one  seventh  of  the  French  force  remained  alive  and  well,  Leclerc 
himself  was  dead,  and  Santo  Domingo  was  forever  lost  to  France. 

Before  that  catastrophe,  however,  the  French  operations  in 
that  island  and  their  evident  intent,  as  set  forth  by  Livingston, 
to  make  Santo  Domingo  a  stepping  stone  to  Louisiana,  created  a 
profound  impression  upon  the  always  impressible  Jefferson. 
Soon  after  Leclerc 's  arrival  in  the  island,  and  while  the  suc 
cess  of  his  enterprise  still  seemed  probable,  the  President,  who 
had  been  watching  the  progress  of  affairs  with  extreme  anxiety, 
wrote  to  Livingston  at  Paris  one  of  the  most  remarkable  letters 
that  ever  were  produced  by  his  gifted  pen.  It  was  remarkable 
alike  for  its  account  of  the  attitude  of  the  United  States  toward 
the  supposed  designs  of  France  upon  Louisiana,  and  for  its  ex 
hibition  of  his  complete  self-reversal  in  policy  toward  France 
and  England  and  toward  peace  and  war.  By  the  stroke  of  a 
pen  he  transformed  himself  from  a  foe  of  England  to  her  friend 
and  wooer,  from  a  lover  of  France  to  her  relentless  enemy,  from 
an  opponent  of  naval  construction  to  an  advocate  of  its  extreme 
expansion,  from  the  opponent  of  entangling  alliances  to  their  ar 
dent  advocate,  from  a  stickler  for  peace  to  a  passionate  propa 
gandist  of  war.  But  above  all  as  a  sane  and  statesmanlike  view 
of  essential  policies  of  national  protection,  and  as  an  adumbration 
of  that  supreme  doctrine  of  the  right  of  self-preservation  and 
self-defense  which  was  in  a  later  administration  explicitly  enun 
ciated  and  executed,  Jefferson's  letter  deserves  rehearsal  and  re 
membrance.  He  said : 

'  *  The  cession  of  Louisiana  and  the  Floridas  by  Spain  to  France 
works  most  sorely  on  the  United  States.  On  this  subject  the 
secretary  of  state  has  written  to  you  fully ;  yet  I  cannot  forbear 
recurring  to  it  personally,  so  deep  is  the  impression  it  makes  on 
my  mind.  It  completely  reverses  all  the  political  relations  of 
the  United  States,  and  will  form  a  new  epoch  in  our  political 
course.  Of  all  nations  of  any  consideration,  France  is  the  one 
which,  hitherto,  has  offered  the  fewest  points  on  which  we  could 
have  conflict  of  right,  and  the  most  points  of  a  communion  of 
interests.  From  these  causes  we  have  ever  looked  to  her  as  our 
natural  friend,  as  one  with  which  we  never  could  have  an  occa 
sion  of  difference.  Her  growth,  therefore,  we  viewed  as  our 


240  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

own,  her  misfortunes  ours.  There  is  on  the  globe  one  single  spot, 
the  possessor  of  which  is  our  natural  and  habitual  enemy.  It  is 
New  Orleans,  through  which  the  produce  of  three-eighths  of  our 
territory  must  pass  to  market,  and  from  its  fertility  it  will  ere 
long  yield  more  than  half  of  our  whole  produce,  and  contain 
more  than  half  of  our  inhabitants.  France,  placing  herself  in 
that  door,  assumes  to  us  the  attitude  of  defiance.  Spain  might 
have  retained  it  quietly  for  years.  Her  pacific  disposition,  her 
feeble  state,  would  induce  her  to  increase  our  facilities  there  so 
that  her  possession  of  the  place  would  hardly  be  felt  by  us,  and 
it  would  not,  perhaps,  be  very  long  before  some  circumstance 
might  arise  which  might  make  the  cession  of  it  to  us  the  price 
of  something  of  more  worth  to  her.  Not  so  can  it  ever  be  in  the 
hands  of  France ;  the  impetuosity  of  her  temper,  the  energy  and 
restlessness  of  her  character,  placed  in  a  point  of  eternal  friction 
with  us,  and  our  character,  which  though  quiet  and  loving  peace 
and  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  is  high-minded,  despising  wealth  in 
competition  with  insult  or  injury,  enterprising  and  energetic  as 
any  nation  on  earth. 

"  These  circumstances  render  it  impossible  that  France  and 
the  United  States  can  continue  long  friends  when  they  meet  in 
so  irritable  a  position.  They,  as  well  as  we,  must  be  blind  if 
they  do  not  see  this,  and  we  must  be  very  improvident  if  we 
do  not  begin  to  make  arrangements  on  that  hypothesis.  The  day 
that  France  takes  possession  of  New  Orleans  fixes  the  sentence 
which  is  to  retain  her  forever  within  her  low-water  mark.  It 
seals  the  union  of  two  nations  who,  in  conjunction,  can  main 
tain  exclusive  possession  of  the  ocean.  From  that  moment  we 
must  marry  ourselves  to  the  British  fleet  and  nation.  We  must 
turn  all  our  attention  to  a  maritime  force,  for  which  our  re 
sources  place  us  on  very  high  ground,  and  having  formed  and 
connected  together  a  power  which  may  render  reinforcement  of 
her  settlements  here  impossible  to  France,  make  the  first  cannon 
which  shall  be  fired  in  Europe  the  signal  for  the  tearing  up  of 
any  settlement  she  may  have  made,  and  for  holding  the  two 
continents  of  America  in  sequestration  for  the  common  purposes 
of  the  united  British  and  American  nations. 

"This  is  not  a  state  of  things  we  seek  or  desire.  It  is  one 
which  this  measure,  if  adopted  by  France,  forces  on  us  as  neces- 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  241 

sarily  as  any  other  cause,  by  the  laws  of  nature,  brings  on  its 
necessary  effect.  It  is  not  from  a  fear  of  France  that  we  depre 
cate  this  measure  proposed  by  her,  for,  however  greater  her  force 
is  than  ours,  compared  in  the  abstract,  it  is  nothing  in  comparison 
to  ours  when  to  be  exerted  on  our  soil ;  but  it  is  from  a  sincere 
love  of  peace,  and  a  firm  persuasion  that,  bound  to  France  by 
the  interests  and  strong  sympathies  still  existing  in  the  minds 
of  our  citizens,  and  holding  relative  positions  which  insure  their 
continuance,  we  are  secure  of  a  long  course  of  peace,  whereas  the 
change  of  friends,  which  will  be  rendered  necessary  if  France 
changes  that  position,  embarks  us  necessarily  as  a  belligerent 
power  in  the  first  war  of  Europe.  In  that  case  France  will 
have  held  possession  of  New  Orleans  during  the  interval  of 
peace,  long  or  short,  at  the  end  of  which  it  will  be  wrested  from 
her.  Will  this  short-lived  possession  have  been  an  equivalent 
to  her  for  the  transfer  of  such  a  weight  into  the  scale  of  her 
enemy  ?  Will  not  the  amalgamation  of  a  young,  thriving  nation 
continue  to  that  enemy  the  health  and  force  which  are  now  so 
evidently  on  the  decline?  And  will  a  few  years'  possession  of 
New  Orleans  add  equally  to  the  strength  of  France?  She  may 
say  she  needs  Louisiana  for  the  supply  of  her  West  Indies.  She 
does  not  need  it  in  time  of  peace,  and  in  war  she  could  not  de 
pend  on  them,  because  they  would  be  so  easily  intercepted. 

"I  should  suppose  that  all  these  considerations  might  in  some 
proper  form  be  brought  into  view  of  the  Government  of  France. 
Though  stated  by  us,  it  ought  not  to  give  offense,  because  we 
do  not  bring  them  forward  as  a  menace,  but  as  consequences  not 
controllable  by  us,  but  inevitable  from  the  course  of  things.  We 
mention  them  not  as  things  which  we  desire  by  any  means,  but 
as  things  we  deprecate,  and  we  beseech  a  friend  to  look  forward, 
and  to  prevent  them  for  our  common  interest. ' ' 

Six  months  later,  on  October  16,  1802,  either  Morales,  the 
Spanish  intendant,  or  Salcedo,  the  Spanish  governor,  at  New 
Orleans,  arbitrarily  and  without  warning  revoked  the  American 
right  to  use  that  city  as  a  port  of  deposit.  That  was  the  first 
step  toward  disclosing  the  terms  of  the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso 
and  toward  turning  Louisiana  over  to  its  new  owners.  The 
news  of  this  did  not  reach  Washington  for  several  weeks.  But 
when  it  did  it  created  one  of  the  most  profound  sensations  the 

VOL.  1—16 


242  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

American  republic  had  thus  far  known.  The  whole  country 
was  swept  with  fiery  tides  of  passion,  amid  which,  strange  to 
say,  the  one  man  who  remained  cool,  calm,  conservative,  and 
master  of  himself  was  the  usually  impressionable  and  impulsive 
Jefferson.  In  the  West,  in  Illinois  and  Kentucky,  the  settlers 
were  furious.  Years  before  they  had  exercised  immeasurable 
patience  and  forbearance  in  the  face  of  great  provocation,  trust 
ing  to  the  promise  that  their  interests  would  be  protected  and 
their  rights  would  be  vindicated.  But  now  all  seemed  to  be  in 
vain.  The  treaty  which  secured  their  rights  was  wantonly  repu 
diated  and  their  vital  interests  were  sacrificed.  They  were 
chiefly  political  followers  of  Jefferson,  but  here  was  a  crisis  su 
perior  to  party  politics.  If  Jefferson  could  not  or  would  not 
protect  them  in  their  rights,  they  would  no  longer  have  regard 
for  him.  For  the  moment  they  hesitated  on  the  turning  of  a 
hair,  whether  to  revolt  against  the  Government  which  seemed 
unable  to  protect  them  and  to  secede  from  the  Union,  or  to  rush 
into  war  against  Spain  or  France  or  whatever  power  barred 
their  free  access  to  the  sea.  Nor  were  Jefferson's  opponents, 
the  Federalists,  at  the  East,  less  strenuous.  Moved  partly  by 
patriotic  indignation,  and  partly  by  a  malicious  factional  desire 
to  embarrass  Jefferson,  they  too  clamored  for  instant  war. 

In  this  crisis,  the  most  serious  he  ever  had  to  meet,  Jefferson 
comported  himself  in  a  manner  worthy  of  Washington  himself. 
His  serenity  remained  unruffled.  There  was  not  a  touch  of  the 
excitement  which  he  had  betrayed  in  his  letter  to  Livingston, 
months  before.  The  situation  was  too  grave.  With  a  singular 
combination  of  the  broad  and  masterful  principles  of  a  states 
man  and  of  the  shrewd  and  adroit  tactics  of  the  most  astute  and 
consummate  politician  America  has  ever  produced,  he  set  him 
self  to  the  double  task  of  allaying  popular  excitement  and  of 
seeking  a  radical  and  permanent  settlement  of  the  long-vexing 
problem.  In  both  he  was  splendidly  successful.  His  first 
thought  was  to  calm  the  mind  of  the  West;  for  which  purpose 
he  sent  Breckinridge  thither  to  intimate  to  influential  men  what 
his  policy  would  be.  Then  Congress  met,  confronting  an  issue 
of  portentous  gravity,  with  the  nation  clamoring  for  action. 
Every  one  listened  for  the  report  and  recommendations  which 
Jefferson  would  make  in  his  message  at  the  opening  of  the  ses- 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  243 

sion.  Had  he  recommended  war  it  would  have  been  voted  in 
an  hour.  Had  he  acquiesced  in  the  action  of  the  Spanish  au 
thorities,  the  whole  West  would  have  risen  in  revolt.  He  did 
neither.  Calmly  and  unconcernedly,  as  though  nothing  extra 
ordinary  was  happening,  he  contented  himself  with  observing 
that  Spain  appeared  to  be  transferring  Louisiana  to  France,  and 
that  the  transaction,  if  completed,  would  cause  some  changes  in 
the  aspect  of  our  foreign  relations.  That  was  all.  Of  the  na 
ture  of  the  impending  changes  he  said  nothing,  nor  did  he  dis 
close  the  course  which  he  intended  to  pursue  in  regard  to  them. 
This  device,  audacious  in  its  insouciant  simplicity,  and  exhibiting 
a  confidence  and  an  unconcern  which  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
Jefferson  really  felt,  was  for  the  time  effective.  But  a  few  weeks 
later  some  definite  action  was  inevitable. 

Early  in  January,  1803,  General  Smith  of  Maryland,  one  of 
the  foremost  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  one  day 
moved  a  secret  session  of  that  body;  and  when  the  public  had 
been  excluded  and  the  doors  closed  he  further  moved  "that  a 
sum  of  two  million  dollars  be  appropriated  to  defray  any  ex 
penses  which  may  be  incurred  between  the  United  States  and 
foreign  nations,  to  be  applied  under  the  direction  of  the  Presi 
dent."  It  was  explained,  in  offering  this  resolution,  that  its 
object  was  "to  enable  the  executive  to  commence  with  more 
effect  a  negotiation  with  the  French  and  Spanish  governments 
relative  to  the  purchase  of  the  Islands  of  New  Orleans  and  the 
provinces  of  East  and  West  Florida."  In  further  explanation 
the  report  of  the  committee  which  had  the  revolution  in  charge 
continued:  "If  we  look  forward  to  the  free  use  of  the  Miss 
issippi  and  the  other  rivers  of  the  West,  New  Orleans  and  the 
Floridas  must  become  a  part  of  the  United  States,  either  by  pur 
chase  or  by  conquest.  The  great  question,  then,  which  presents 
itself  is,  Shall  we  at  this  time  lay  the  foundation  for  future 
peace  by  offering  a  fair  equivalent  consideration,  or  shall  we 
hereafter  incur  the  hazards  and  the  horrors  of  war?"  This 
resolution  was  adopted,  and  a  few  weeks  later  Congress  author 
ized  the  enlistment  of  80,000  volunteers. 

It  is  probable  that  many  of  those  who  voted  for  these  meas 
ures  were  trying  to  embarrass  the  President,  or  to  force  his 
hand.  But  Jefferson  was  not  to  be  beaten  at  any  game  of  poli- 


244  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tics,  nor  was  he  idle  at  this  crucial  time.  On  the  very  day  when 
General  Smith's  resolution  was  presented,  he  nominated  Mon 
roe  to  be  minister  extraordinary  to  France  and  Spain,  to  co 
operate  with  Livingston  at  Paris  in  negotiating  a  settlement. 
If  negotiations  at  Madrid  were  needed,  Pinckney,  our  minister 
there,  was  to  act  with  them.  He  explained  to  Monroe  that  the 
Federalists  were  seeking  either  to  plunge  the  country  into  war, 
or  to  win  the  people  of  the  West  away  from  him  and  so  defeat 
him  at  the  next  election.  Something  must  therefore  be  done 
which  would  produce  a  profound  effect  upon  the  public  mind  for 
the  counteracting  of  such  schemes.  He  regretted  the  necessity 
for  doing  anything,  because  an  entanglement  in  European  poli 
tics  would  not  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  United  States.  Never 
theless,  action  was  necessary.  He  urged  Monroe  to  make  haste, 
"as  the  moment  in  France  is  critical."  And  so  he  instructed 
Monroe  and  Livingston  to  negotiate  for  the  purchase  of  New 
Orleans  and  the  other  Louisiana  territory  on  the  east  bank  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  perhaps  also  of  East  and  West  Florida,  or 
so  much  of  them  as  the  possessor  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  part 
with.  His  idea  was  that  ownership  of  the  entire  eastern  shore 
of  the  river  would  sufficiently  safeguard  our  right  to  navigate. 
The  greater  scheme,  of  acquiring  the  whole  Louisiana  territory, 
was  left  in  abeyance,  and  it  is  probable  that  he  regarded  it  with 
disfavor.  Nevertheless,  he  at  the  same  time  sent  the  Lewis  and 
Clark  expedition  across  the  northern  part  of  that  territory,  to 
explore  the  Oregon  country,  the  Pacific  coast  of  which  had  al 
ready  been  visited  by  American  vessels. 

Jefferson's  state  of  mind  was  disclosed  in  another  letter  which 
he  wrote  to  Livingston,  in  which  he  said  that  "the  future  desti 
nies  of  our  country  hang  on  the  event  of  this  negotiation,"  for 
if  we  could  not  acquire  New  Orleans,  war  was  inevitable.  To 
Dupont  de  Nemours  he  wrote:  "The  use  of  the  Mississippi  is 
so  indispensable  that  we  cannot  one  moment  hesitate  to  hazard 
our  existence  for  its  maintenance."  And  a  little  later  he  wrote 
to  Monroe  and  Livingston  that  if  their  negotiations  with  the 
French  government  failed,  they  should  withdraw  from  Paris, 
go  over  to  London,  and  negotiate  with  the  British  government 
an  aggressive  alliance  against  France.  Indeed,  Jefferson  had 
himself,  weeks  before,  told  Thornton,  the  British  charge  d'af- 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  245 

faires  at  Washington,  that  he  thought  such  a  course  probable, 
and  that  if  it  was  necessary  to  employ  force  against  France 
or  Spain,  the  United  States,  having  once  drawn  the  sword, 
would  throw  away  the  scabbard.  Pichon,  the  French  charge 
at  Washington,  was  much  alarmed,  and  informed  Talleyrand 
that  the  American  government  was  intensely  bitter  against 
France,  and  that  Jefferson  was  likely  to  make  an  alliance  with 
Great  Britain.  Madison  personally  told  Pichon  that  the  pos 
session  of  New  Orleans  and  West  Florida  was  a  necessity  for 
this  country.  T\e  Spanish  government,  too,  was  much  con 
cerned,  although  it  was  merely  a  locum  tenens  for  France,  and 
in  April  its  minister  at  Washington  informed  Madison  that  the 
right  to  use  New  Orleans  as  a  port  of  deposit  would  be  at  once 
restored,  and  he  thanked  our  government  for  its  patience  and 
forbearance. 

Meantime,  negotiations  had  been  proceeding  in  Paris  for  a 
final  settlement.  In  advance  of  Monroe's  arrival  Livingston 
had  broached  the  matter  to  Talleyrand,  with  no  success  and  with 
little  encouragement.  Bonaparte  was  still  possessed  of  the  ideas 
which  he  had  cherished  when  Louisiana  was  acquired  from 
Spain.  He  would  not  part  with  a  single  rood  of  ground  on 
which  he  meant  to  build  up  a  great  American  Empire.  Living 
ston  was  told  that,  in  effect,  and  was  much  disheartened,  seeing 
no  alternative  to  a  war.  But  then  there  came  a  sudden  and 
complete  transformation  of  the  scene.  Bonaparte  realized  the 
disastrous  failure  of  French  arms  in  Santo  Domingo,  and  was 
for  that  reason  disgusted  with  colonial  enterprises.  He  could 
not  hope  to  conquer  that  island  without  sending  over  large  re 
inforcements,  and  he  could  not  send  them,  for  two  reasons: 
First,  that  he  would  need  all  his  soldiers  at  home  in  the  war 
which  he  knew  was  impending  with  Great  Britain  and  probably 
some  continental  allies ;  and  second,  that  the  British  fleet  would 
render  it  impossible  for  him  to  send  such  an  expedition  across  the 
ocean.  For  these  same  reasons  he  could  not  send  an  expedition 
to  take  possession  of  Louisiana.  Indeed,  it  would  be  folly  to 
attempt  to  occupy  and  to  hold  Louisiana  without  first  making 
sure  of  Santo  Domingo.  He  realized  that  Louisiana  would  be 
exceedingly  vulnerable  and  easily  taken  from  him  in  war  even 
by  the  United  States  alone,  while  against  a  hostile  combination 


246  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  the  American  army  and  the  British  fleet  resistance  would  be 
folly.  It  is  probable,  also,  that  he  saw  with  prophetic  eye  the 
development  of  a  powerful  American  navy,  which  would  contest 
with  Great  Britain  the  mastery  of  the  seas,  and  he  hoped 
through  it  to  see  the  power  of  his  great  rival  humbled ;  to  which 
end  it  was  worth  while  to  give  America  scope  for  development. 
Finally,  he  realized  that  a  round  sum  of  American  money  would 
be  uncommonly  convenient  to  add  to  his  war-chest,  as  soon  as 
the  brief  peace  of  Amiens  was  broken.  Of  course,  in  the  treaty 
of  San  Ildefonso  he  had  solemnly  covenanted  with  the  King  of 
Spain  that  he  would  not  alienate  Louisiana  to  any  other  power. 
But  it  does  not  appear  that  he  took  the  trouble  to  remember  that 
promise.  Certainly  he  did  not  let  it  stand  for  a  moment  in  the 
way  of  his  designs. 

Monroe  arrived  in  France  early  in  April.  On  April  10  Liv 
ingston  wrote  to  him  at  Havre,  saying:  "We  have  long  and 
anxiously  waited  for  you.  God  grant  that  your  mission  may 
answer  your  and  the  public  expectation.  War  may  do  some 
thing  for  us;  nothing  else  would."  That  was  Sunday,  Easter 
day.  That  evening  Bonaparte  had  with  him  at  St.  Cloud  his 
foreign  minister,  Talleyrand,  and  his  treasury  minister,  Mar- 
bois.  The  latter  had  spent  some  time  in  the  diplomatic  service 
in  America.  He  also  differed  from  Talleyrand  in  being  truth 
ful  and  pecuniarily  honest.  The  three  held  a  long  conference 
over  the  Louisiana  business  and  the  stormy  outlook  in  England ; 
which  was  prolonged  so  late  that  the  ministers  remained  at  St. 
Cloud  all  night.  Talleyrand  opposed  the  sale  of  New  Orleans, 
while  Marbois  advocated  it.  Bonaparte  himself  was  undecided, 
but,  because  of  bad  news  from  England,  was  inclined  to  make 
the  sale.  He  feared,  indeed,  that  England  had  already  seized, 
or  was  about  to  seize,  Louisiana.  "If,"  he  said,  "I  leave  the 
least  time  to  our  enemies,  I  shall  transmit  only  an  empty  title 
to  those  Republicans  whose  friendship  I  seek.  They  ask  of  me 
only  one  town  in  Louisiana ;  but  I  consider  that  the  whole  colony 
is  already  lost.  Besides,  in  the  hands  of  that  growing  power  the 
province  will  be  more  useful  to  the  policy  and  even  to  the  com 
merce  of  France  than  it  will  be  if  I  attempt  to  retain  it. ' ' 

Early  the  next  morning  Bonaparte  sent  for  Marbois,  doubt 
less  selecting  him  .rather  than  Talleyrand  to  conduct  a  financial 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  247 

transaction  because  he  believed  Marbois  to  be  honest.  To  him 
he  said :  ' '  There  is  no  more  time  for  irresolution  and  delibera 
tion.  I  renounce  Louisiana.  I  will  cede  not  only  New  Orleans 
but  the  entire  territory,  without  reservation.  Therefore  nego 
tiate  at  once  to  that  end.  Do  not  wait  for  Mr.  Monroe  to  get 
here  to-morrow.  See  Mr.  Livingston  about  it  to-day.  I  want 
fifty  million  francs  for  the  territory,  and  will  take  no  less.  Let 
me  know  hour  by  hour  how  your  negotiations  proceed.  Keep 
Talleyrand  also  informed."  It  does  not  appear  whether  Mar 
bois  told  this  to  Talleyrand  before  he  went  to  Livingston,  or, 
which  is  more  probable,  Talleyrand  listened  at  the  keyhole.  But 
at  any  rate  Talleyrand  learned  of  it  and  got  to  Livingston  ahead 
of  Marbois.  He  asked  him  if  the  United  States  wanted  to  buy 
the  whole  of  Louisiana.  Livingston,  mindful  of  his  instructions 
to  negotiate  for  only  New  Orleans  and  Florida,  answered,  No; 
adding,  however,  that  he  thought  it  would  be  good  policy  for 
France  to  sell  it  all,  or  at  least  the  northern  part,  above  the 
Arkansas  River,  which  would  never  be  of  practical  use  to  her. 
Talleyrand  retorted  that  without  New  Orleans  the  whole  of 
Louisiana  would  be  useless  to  France,  and  he  asked  what  Living 
ston  thought  the  United  States  would  be  willing  to  pay  for  it 
Livingston  replied  that  he  was  not  prepared  to  name  a  price, 
as  he  had  no  instructions  to  that  end  and  had  given  the  matter 
no  thought,  but  he  supposed  that  the  United  States  would  pay 
as  much  as  twenty  million  francs,  provided  that  France  would 
pay  the  claims  of  American  citizens  for  spoliations.  Talleyrand 
objected  that  this  was  too  little,  whereupon  Livingston  said  that 
he  would  discuss  the  subject  with  Monroe  immediately  upon  his 
arrival. 

Marbois,  despite  Bonaparte's  urging,  appears  not  to  have  seen 
Livingston  that  day.  The  next  day,  Tuesday,  Monroe  arrived 
and  was  much  surprised  to  learn  from  Livingston  of  Talley 
rand's  overtures.  In  the  evening  as  they  were  discussing  at 
dinner  the  question  of  price,  Marbois  called.  As  Monroe  had 
not  yet  been  formally  received  as  minister  by  Bonaparte,  Mar 
bois  did  not  negotiate  with  him,  but  with  Livingston  alone. 
They  discussed  the  matter  until  a  late  hour,  and  then  Living 
ston  went  to  Marbois 's  house  and  remained  there  until  midnight. 
Bonaparte  had  named  fifty  million  francs  as  the  minimum  price, 


248  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

but  Marbois,  like  a  faithful  minister  and  shrewd  dealer,  sought 
to  get  as  much  more  as  possible.  He  asked  first  for  125,000,000, 
but  at  midnight  lowered  his  demand  to  100,000,000;  though  he 
confessed  to  Livingston  that  it  was  still  an  exorbitant  price. 
After  leaving  Marbois,  with  the  bargain  still  unsettled,  Living 
ston,  without  waiting  to  confer  with  Monroe,  wrote  to  Madison, 
telling  of  the  offer  and  saying  that  he  believed  it  would  be  wise 
to  purchase  the  territory  at  that  price.  He  admitted  that  the 
price  was  too  high.  But,  he  said,  some  of  the  purchase  price 
could  be  got  back  by  reselling  the  territory  west  of  the  Miss 
issippi  to  some  European  power  whose  presence  there  we  should 
not  fear!  That  was  perhaps  the  most  astounding  proposal  ever 
made  by  a  minister  of  the  United  States.  It  of  course  never  re 
ceived  serious  consideration,  and  has  never  been  repeated. 

The  negotiations  then  dragged  on  slowly,  partly  because  of  the 
malicious  obstruction  of  Talleyrand,  who  postponed  presenting 
Monroe  to  Bonaparte  until  May  1,  thus  compelling  all  the  direct 
negotiations  to  be  conducted  by  Livingston  alone.  Livingston 
and  Monroe  agreed  that  it  would  be  safe  to  offer  fifty  million 
francs,  but  that  they  should  first  try  a  smaller  sum.  So  Liv 
ingston  offered  forty  millions,  of  which  one  half  should  be  re 
turned  to  satisfy  American  claims  for  spoliations.  Marbois  re 
ported  this  to  Bonaparte,  who  was  much  displeased;  so  that 
Marbois  reported  to  Livingston  that  the  whole  matter  would 
have  to  be  dropped  unless  Bonaparte  should  graciously  be  moved 
to  reopen  negotiations.  At  that  Livingston  offered  to  increase 
the  bid  to  fifty  millions,  which  was  the  exact  sum  that  Bonaparte 
had  named.  No  answer  was  made  for  some  days,  but  on  April 
17  announcement  was  made  of  the  declaration  of  war  between 
France  and  England.  That  meant  that  France  would  have  to 
make  terms  with  America  over  Louisiana.  Ten  days  later  the 
end  was  reached.  Marbois  drafted  a  treaty  providing  for  the 
cession  of  all  Louisiana  for  the  sum  of  eighty  million  francs,  of 
which  twenty  millions  should  go  for  the  payment  of  the  American 
spoliation  claims,  leaving  a  net  purchase  price  of  sixty  million 
francs.  Livingston  and  Monroe  tried  to  get  a  reduction  of  ten 
million  francs,  but  in  vain.  In  the  end  they  accepted  the  fig 
ures  of  Marbois,  and  on  May  2,  the  treaty,  dated  April  30,  was 
signed.  On  signing  it,  Livingston  remarked  to  Monroe,  "We 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  249 

have  lived  long,  but  this  is  the  noblest  work  of  our  lives." 
Bonaparte  at  first,  ignoring  his  own  prescription  of  fifty  millions, 
objected  to  the  price  as  too  low;  but  presently  agreed  to  it  and 
ratified  the  treaty.  "I  have  given  England,"  he  said,  exult- 
ingly,  "a  maritime  rival  who  will  some  day  humble  her  pride." 
He  also  remarked:  " Sixty  millions  for  a  territory  which  we 
may  not  occupy  for  a  single  day ! ' ' 

This  latter  remark  suggested  the  extraordinary  circumstances 
that  France  was  thus  selling  us  something  which  she  did  not  in 
fact  possess,  which  she  had  never  paid  for,  which  she  was 
solemnly  bound  not  to  sell  to  us,  and  which  the  French  Con 
stitution  itself  forbade  her  to  dispose  of  in  that  way.  For 
France  had  never  taken  possession  of  the  country ;  she  had  never 
given  Tuscany  to  Spain,  or  to  the  Prince  of  Parma;  she  was 
pledged  by  the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso  not  to  alienate  the  terri 
tory  ;  and  the  Constitution  forbade  the  consul  on  his  own  author 
ity  to  alienate  any  of  the  national  domain.  Another  circum 
stance  is  worthy  of  notice.  That  is,  that  in  signing  the  treaty 
Livingston  and  Monroe  violated,  or  at  least  enormously  exceeded, 
their  instructions.  They  had  been  authorized  to  purchase  only 
New  Orleans  and  the  Floridas,  and  they  knew  that  Jefferson 
had  only  $2,000,000  at  his  disposal  for  the  transaction.  Yet  they 
purchased  the  whole  of  Louisiana  and  agreed  to  pay  $16,000,000 
for  it.  Evidently  the  spirit  of  John  Jay  was  still  extant  in 
American  diplomacy! 

The  treaty  of  cession  was  protested  by  the  Spanish  govern 
ment,  both  to  the  American  minister  at  Madrid  and  by  the  Span 
ish  minister  at  Washington,  on  the  dual  ground  that  France 
was  prohibited  by  treaty  from  alienating  the  Louisiana  Terri 
tory,  and  that  France  had  failed  to  secure  for  the  so-called 
King  of  Tuscany  the  recognition  from  England  and  Russia  which 
she  had  promised  to  secure  as  a  part  of  the  bargain  for  the 
transfer  of  Louisiana.  The  reply  of  Madison  to  these  protests 
was  that  they  were  matters  of  no  concern  to  the  United  States, 
as  this  country  was  not  a  party  to  the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso. 
Jefferson  himself  in  a  letter  to  Livingston  stated  the  case  tersely 
and  conclusively:  "We  have  answered,  that  these  were  private 
questions  between  France  and  Spain,  which  they  must  settle  to 
gether;  that  we  derived  our  title  from  the  First  Consul,  and 


250  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

did  not  doubt  his  guarantee  of  it. ' '  The  protests  were  reported 
to  the  United  States  Senate,  but  had  little  weight  with  it.  In 
deed,  they  deserved  no  consideration,  for  the  view  of  them  which 
was  taken  by  Jefferson  and  Madison  was  undoubtedly  right. 
The  treaty  was  submitted  to  the  Senate  on  October  17  and  was 
ratified  four  days  later,  and  was  then  immediately  proclaimed  as 
in  force. 

Bonaparte 's  remark  that  the  territory  might  not  be  in  France 's 
actual  possession  a  single  day  was  almost  literally  verified. 
When  the  treaty  was  ratified  and  proclaimed  on  October  21  the 
Spanish  were  still  in  possession.  It  was  soon  arranged  that 
France  should  take  possession  on  November  30,  and  on  that  day 
the  Spanish  authorities  did  in  fact  make  a  formal  transfer  of 
title  to  the  French.  But  the  French  prefect  had  no  troops,  not 
so  much  as  a  corporal 's  guard,  to  support  his  authority.  There 
fore  a  volunteer  force  of  French  residents  of  New  Orleans  and 
American  residents  and  visitors,  to  the  number  of  more  than 
two  hundred,  was  organized  into  a  militia  body  under  the  com 
mand  of  the  American  consul,  and  it  maintained  order  until  a 
detachment  of  the  American  army  could  be  brought  upon  the 
scene.  Thus  in  a  sense  the  actual  possession,  or  at  least  the  mili 
tary  occupation  and  control,  passed  from  Spain  to  the  United 
States.  Then  on  December  20  the  formal  transfer  of  France's 
nominal  and  shadowy  possession  to  the  United  States  was  made. 
American  troops  were  massed  in  the  military  square  in  front  of 
the  New  Orleans  City  Hall.  At  the  top  of  a  tall  flag  staff 
floated  the  French  Tricolor.  At  the  bottom  an  American  Stars 
and  Stripes  was  attached  to  the  halyard.  Then  as  the  rope  was 
pulled  the  one  descended  and  the  other  ascended.  Midway  they 
met  and  for  a  moment  floated  side  by  side.  A  gun  was  fired, 
followed  by  salutes  from  all  the  batteries  in  and  around  the  city. 
The  French  flag  was  then  hauled  down  and  removed,  while  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  rose  to  the  top  of  the  pole.  Thus  was  effected 
a  transfer  of  property  which  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  momentous  and  most  far-reaching  in  its  effects  of  all  in 
the  history  of  the  world. 

We  are  not  now  concerned  with  the  epoch-making  effects  of 
this  transaction  upon  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  United  States ; 
though  scarcely  any  other  event  in  all  history  has  exerted  so  pro- 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  251 

found  and  comprehensive  an  influence  upon  American  political 
institutions,  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  Constitution,  and 
upon  the  whole  subsequent  course  of  our  history  and  the  tenor  of 
our  national  life.  At  present  we  are  concerned  with  its  effect 
upon  our  foreign  relations,  and  this,  too,  was  of  transcendent 
importance.  It  was  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  that  gave  us 
our  frontage  upon  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  therefore  our  inter-  ^ 
est  in  the  West  Indies,  Central  America,  and  South  America, 
where  at  this  very  time  great  doings  were  in  preparation.  It 
brought  us  into  contact  with  Mexico,  and  opened  the  way  di 
rectly  for  our  annexation  of  Texas  and  our  seizure  of  New 
Mexico,  Arizona,  and  California.  It  thus  was  the  preface  to 
development  of  our  interests  on  the  Pacific  coast  and  in  the 
Pacific  Ocean  and  to  the  scheme  of  an  Isthmian  canal,  and  our 
relationships  with  the  great  Asiatic  nations  beyond  the  Pacific. 
With  these  matters  we  shall  deal  in  their  due  order.  The  first 
effects  upon  our  foreign  relations  were  immediately  perceived, 
in  an  increase  of  friendship  with  France,  and  an  increase  of 
irritation  toward  us  on  the  part  of  Spain.  The  latter  country, 
not  without  cause,  felt  that  it  had  been  badly  treated  by  France^ 
and  it  vented  much  of  its  resentment  and  anger  upon  the  United 
States.  Before  that  time  relations  had  been  strained  and  ir 
ritable.  Thereafter  they  were  dangerously  near  the  breaking 
point.  So  great  was  the  Spanish  animosity,  in  fact,  that  it  was 
not  deemed  prudent  to  attempt  any  further  negotiations  with 
that  power  at  that  time.  Monroe,  flushed  with  triumph  and  ex 
ultation,  at  first  was  hot  for  proceeding  straight  from  Paris  to 
Madrid,  to  negotiate  a  supplementary  treaty  concerning  Florida ; 
but  he  was  dissuaded  by  the  French  government  from  so  doing. 
The  matter  was  postponed,  to  be  settled  in  after  years  at  great 
cost. 

One  of  the  most  important  international  results  of  the  Louis 
iana  purchase  was  that  it  involved  us  in  a  boundary  dispute; 
or  rather  in  two  boundary  disputes.  That  was  because  the 
treaty  of  cession  did  not  define  the  limits  of  the  territory.  In 
the  treaty  of  San  Ildefonso  the  territory  had  been  described  as 
' '  The  colony  or  province  of  Louisiana,  with  the  same  extent  that 
it  now  has  in  the  hands  of  Spain,  and  that  it  had  when  France 
possessed  it,  and  such  as  it  should  be  after  the  treaties  subse- 


252  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

quently  entered  into  between  Spain  and  other  States."  Those 
same  phrases  were  copied  into  our  treaty  of  cession.  But  there 
was  nothing  to  indicate  what  they  meant,  and  immediately  after 
signing  the  treaty  Livingston  and  Monroe  began  to  wonder 
what  it  was,  after  all,  that  they  had  bought.  They  asked  the 
French  ministers,  but  got  no  satisfaction.  Talleyrand  advised 
them  to  make  the  most  of  their  bargain.  Marbois  admitted  that 
the  boundaries  were  indefinite  and  said  that  it  was  well  that  they 
should  be.  Monroe  wanted  to  claim  as  a  part  of  Louisiana  all 
of  West  Florida,  as  far  as  the  Perdido  River,  which  is  the  west 
ern  boundary  of  our  present  State  of  Florida,  and  he  wanted, 
too,  to  go  straight  to  Madrid  and  to  try  to  purchase  all  the  rest 
of  Florida  for  a  million  or  two  dollars.  In  all  probability  he 
would  have  failed  in  his  mission,  though  it  would  have  been 
well  if  the  matter  could  have  been  settled  at  that  time.  The 
other  boundary  dispute  was  at  the  western  side  of  Louisiana, 
between  it  and  the  remaining  Spanish  territory  of  Mexico,  which 
then  included  Texas.  The  Spanish  contention  was  that  the 
boundary  was  the  Sabine  River,  which  now  divides  Louisiana 
from  Texas,  or  even  the  Mermenteau  River,  midway  between 
the  Sabine  and  New  Orleans,  and  that  all  of  Texas  still  be 
longed  to  Spain.  The  French  claim,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
that  the  boundary  was  the  Rio  Bravo,  which  we  now  call  the 
Rio  Grande,  which  is  the  boundary  between  Texas  and  Mexico, 
and  that  thus  the  whole  of  Texas  was  included  in  the  Louisiana 
purchase.  There  were  arguments  on  each  side  of  the  case,  and 
though  much  research  and  consideration  have  been  given  to  the 
matter  in  the  century  since,  it  has  never  been  possible  to  say 
with  certainty  which  side  was  right.  Jefferson,  Madison,  Mon 
roe,  and  John  Quincy  Adams  seem  to  have  inclined  to  the 
French  view  of  the  case,  as  was  not  unnatural.  But  nothing 
material  was  done  about  it  at  that  time,  for  two  reasons.  One 
was  that  Jefferson  was  seeking  simply 'the  possession  and  con 
trol  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  these  were  assured  with  the 
western  boundary  at  the  Sabine  just  as  well  as  with  it  at  the 
Rio  Grande.  The  other  was  that  Texas  was  then  supposed  to 
be  chiefly  an  uninhabitable  desert,  not  worth  possessing. 

With  West  Florida  the  case  was  different.     That  region  was 
known  to  be  of  value,  and  it  was  adjacent  to  our  own  southern 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  253 

territories,  so  that  the  question  of  its  ownership  soon  arose  in 
an  acute  form.  Jefferson  in  August,  1803,  declared  that  the 
United  States  had  "some  pretensions"  to  consider  the  Rio  Grande 
as  the  western  boundary  of  Louisiana,  and  still  more  ground  for 
claiming  the  Perdido  River  as  its  eastern  boundary.  This  was 
disputed  by  the  Spanish  minister  at  Washington,  the  Marquis 
of  Casa  Yrujo,  who  indeed  protested  against  the  whole  Louis 
iana  business  on  the  ground  that  the  United  States  was  purchas 
ing  stolen  goods ;  which  was  substantially  true.  Jefferson  disre 
garded  him,  and  proceeded  to  occupy  the  land.  But  it  is  note 
worthy  that  the  French  government  never,  either  at  the  time  of 
making  the  treaty  nor  at  that  of  making  the  actual  transfer  of 
government,  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  say  that  West  Florida 
belonged  to  us.  It  did  assure  us,  confidentially,  that  Texas  was 
included  in  the  sale,  but  was  mute  concerning  West  Florida. 
The  Spanish  minister,  finding  himself  practically  ignored  by  the 
state  department,  harked  back  to  the  practices  of  Genet  and 
other  French  intriguers  of  years  before,  and  tried  to  get  the 
Federalist  or  opposition  press  of  the  United  States  to  wage  a 
campaign  in  his  behalf  against  Jefferson.  But  the  day  for  that 
was  past.  He  had  difficulty  in  getting  any  American  paper 
to  attack  its  own  Government  in  behalf  of  a  semi-hostile  foreign 
power;  and  on  the  protests  of  our  Government  he  was  presently 
recalled. 

Our  Government  then  proceeded  with  the  actual  occupation 
and  administration  of  a  part  of  West  Florida.  An  act  of  Con 
gress  of  February,  1804,  and  a  Presidential  proclamation  of 
May  following,  established  a  United  States  customs  district  in 
the  Mississippi  territory,  north  of  Mobile.  At  the  same  time 
recourse  was  had  to  diplomacy  to  effect  a  settlement  of  the  dis 
pute;  but  unfortunately  the  negotiations  were  conducted  at 
Madrid  instead  of  at  Washington.  The  American  minister  there 
was  Charles  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  whom  Jefferson  had 
appointed  in  payment  for  his  political  services  in  securing  the 
vote  of  South  Carolina  for  Jefferson  in  1800.  But  Jefferson 
apparently  now  had  no  further  use  for  him  and  wanted  to  get 
rid  of  him  and  send  his  favorite  diplomat,  Monroe,  in  his  place. 
In  these  circumstances,  without  support  at  home,  Pinckney  could 
do  little.  He  strove  earnestly  to  get  Spain  to  recognize  our  title 


254  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

to  West  Florida,  and  at  the  same  time  to  get  satisfaction  for 
American  claims  against  Spain  on  account  of  Spanish  seizure 
of  American  vessels  and  Spanish  aid  to  French  privateers  during 
our  undeclared  war  with  France  in  the  preceding  administra 
tion.  He  succeeded  in  making  a  treaty  under  which  Spain  was 
to  pay  for  her  own  depredations  on  our  commerce  but  not  for 
those  of  the  French;  and  he  urged  that  it  should  be  ratified  as 
a  partial  settlement  and  as  a  basis  for  subsequently  pressing  the 
remaining  claims.  Our  Government,  however,  waited  two  years 
before  the  Senate  would  ratify  this  treaty,  and  by  that  time  the 
Spanish  government  refused  to  accept  it.  That  marked  the 
end  of  Pinckney's  career  at  Madrid,  and  Jefferson  with  avidity 
sent  Monroe  to  take  his  place  as  an  active  negotiator,  though 
Pinckney  nominally  remained  in  the  legation. 

Monroe  reached  Madrid  in  high  feather,  with  expectations  of 
repeating  his  Paris  success,  only  to  discover  in  a  very  short  time 
that  Pinckney  had  done  all  that  could  be  done.  Godoy,  the 
Prince  of  the  Peace,  was  reckless  of  the  issue.  Peace  or  war 
were  all  the  same  to  him.  He  was  simply  determined  to  yield 
nothing  to  America.  In  fact,  he  was  no  longer  the  master  of 
Spanish  affairs,  but  was  waiting  for  orders  from  France.  One 
of  his  subordinates  temporized  with  Monroe  for  a  time  until  those 
orders  came.  They  were  unfavorable  to  America.  Having  re 
fused  itself  to  declare  that  West  Florida  belonged  with  Louis 
iana  and  thus  had  become  the  property  of  the  United  States, 
the  French  government  now  directed  Spain  to  make  no  such  con 
cession.  Indeed,  Talleyrand  argued  openly  that  we  had  no  claim 
upon  West  Florida.  The  result  was  that  Monroe  soon  left  Ma 
drid  in  utter  failure  and  a  bad  temper.  Soon  after  this  the 
American  settlers  in  West  Florida  attempted  a  rebellion,  with 
the  object  of  securing  their  independence  of  Spain,  but  the  ef 
fort  ended  in  failure. 

The  next  move  was  made  in  Paris.  John  Armstrong  of  New 
York  was  now  our  minister  there,  and  he  advised  in  a  letter  to 
Monroe  that  the  United  States  should  send  an  army  into  Texas, 
clear  across  to  the  Rio  Grande,  and  thus  take  possession  of  that 
disputed  territory.  France  had  told  us  that  it  belonged  to  us 
as  a  part  of  Louisiana,  while  Spain  denied  it;  therefore,  said 
Armstrong,  "A  stroke  of  this  kind  would  at  once  bring  Spain  to 


COMPLETE  NATIONALITY  255 

her  senses  and  France  to  her  rescue,  and  without  giving  either 
room  to  quarrel."  Having  done  that,  we  could  go  on  to  do  as 
we  pleased  in  Florida.  This  was  wise  and  courageous  counsel, 
but  Jefferson  regarded  it  as  contradictory  to  his  own  policy  in 
Florida,  and  did  not  follow  it.  However,  the  French  govern 
ment  soon  realized  that  it  must  recede,  or  cause  Spain  to  recede, 
from  the  position  which  had  been  taken  by  Godoy.  So  a  few 
months  later  Talleyrand  gave  Armstrong  an  unsigned  memoran 
dum  to  be  forwarded  to  Washington,  proposing  that  the  United 
States  should  reopen  negotiations  with  Spain  on  the  basis  of  re 
ferring  the  Florida  dispute  to  Bonaparte  as  arbitrator.  It  was 
further  proposed  by  Talleyrand  that  if  Bonaparte  should  decide 
that  Spain  must  give  up  Florida,  the  United  States  should  pay 
Spain  ten  million  dollars,  relinquish  the  southern  part  of  Texas, 
and  accept  Spanish  colonial  bills  in  payment  of  our  claims 
against  Spain  for  Spanish  injuries  to  our  shipping,  dropping  the 
claims  for  French  depredations.  Armstrong  objected  that  ten 
millions  was  too  much,  whereupon  Talleyrand  or  his  messenger 
said  that  seven  millions  would  be  accepted,  and  that  nearly  three 
millions  would  be  paid  in  satisfaction  of  American  claims,  leav 
ing  only  about  four  millions  actually  to  be  paid  over  to  Spain. 

Armstrong  reported  this  to  Madison,  with  the  result  that  in 
stead  of  accepting  the  proposal  Jefferson  at  once  prepared  to 
repeat  in  Florida  his  former  policy  in  Louisiana.  He  began 
talking  of  war,  while  quietly  working  for  peace.  He  reported 
to  Congress  in  December,  1805,  that  peaceful  and  friendly  ef 
forts  to  settle  the  boundaries  of  Louisiana  had  not  succeeded,  but 
that  Spain  had  made  inroads  into  the  territories  of  Orleans  and 
the  Mississippi — the  latter  meaning  "West  Florida.  He  had  been 
compelled  to  send  troops  to  that  region  to  redress  injuries  and 
prevent  further  aggressions.  He  therefore  asked  for  a  strength 
ening  of  the  army  and  navy,  including  the  building  of  some  large 
battleships,  and  also  for  a  law  forbidding  in  what  he  described 
as  that  time  of  "violence  and  wrong,"  the  exportation  of  arms 
and  ammunition.  This  was  his  public  message  to  Congress. 
But  three  days  later  he  sent  a  secret  message,  in  which  he  ad 
mitted  that  the  former  was  merely  for  effect  upon  Europe,  and 
that  in  fact  there  was  a  good  prospect  of  settling  the  dispute 
peacefully,  if  Congress  would  only  vote  him  the  necessary  money, 


256  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

as  it  had  done  in  the  case  of  Louisiana.  Gallatin,  the  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  sent  to  Congress  for  passage  a  resolution  appro 
priating  two  million  dollars  "for  the  purchase  of  Florida." 
But  the  temper  of  Congress  had  changed  since  1803,  a  strong  op 
position  arose  in  the  President's  own  party,  and  it  was  some  time 
before  the  passage  of  the  resolution  could  be  secured.  Then  it 
was  too  late.  Bonaparte  had  by  this  time  determined  to  seize 
Spain  and  all  her  colonies  for  his  own.  So  all  negotiations  for 
Florida,  both  East  and  West,  were  abandoned,  Spain  remained 
in  possession  of  those  territories,  and  diplomatic  relations  be 
tween  Spain  and  the  United  States  were  suspended  for  the  next 
ten  years. 


X 

THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN 

THE  acquisition  of  Louisiana  gave  the  United  States  unques 
tionable  territorial  dominance  of  North  America,  and  in  a 
sense  completed  the  purpose  for  which  in  great  part  these  colonies 
had  been  founded.  Many  men  had  come  hither  in  the  seventeenth 
century  to  escape  the  vicissitudes  and  afflictions  of  European  wars 
and  oppressions,  but  found  themselves  still  subject  thereto  because 
of  their  continued  subjection  to  European  sovereignty.  In  hope 
of  consummating  the  desired  deliverance  in  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  they  achieved  political  independence,  but  found  the  work 
still  imperfect  because  of  the  immediate  adjacence  of  vast  alien 
possessions.  So  in  the  opening  years  of  the  nineteenth  century 
they  took  those  possessions  for  themselves  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
leave  no  potentially  hostile  power  in  occupancy  of  what  might  be 
developed  into  a  hostile  State ;  hoping  by  this  third  step  to  perfect 
their  separation  from  Europe  and  European  affairs.  But  the 
hope  was  vain ;  necessarily  so  since  America  and  Europe  were  on 
the  same  globe,  their  shores  washed  by  the  same  sea,  and  their 
commercial  relations  growing  more  and  more  intimate.  Nat 
urally,  therefore,  we  came  more  and  more  into  touch,  either 
friendly  or  hostile,  with  the  chief  maritime  power,  Great  Britain. 
Jefferson's  old  antipathy  toward  that  country  had  vanished  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Louisiana  episode.  In  the  fall  of  1802  he 
had  written  that ' '  We  stand  completely  corrected  of  the  error  that 
either  the  Government  or  the  nation  of  France  has  any  remains 
of  friendship  for  us  ' ' ;  and  in  the  summer  of  the  next  year  he 
added,  "We  are  friendly,  cordially  and  conscientiously  friendly, 
to  England."  At  the  same  time  he  had  "a  perfect  horror  at 
everything  like  connecting  ourselves  with  the  politics  of  Europe. " 
His  policy  was  "peace,  commerce,  and  honest  friendship  with 
all;  entangling  alliances  with  none."  He  looked  for  the  day 
when  we  should  be  strong  enough  to  say  by  what  laws  other  na- 
VOL.  I—IT  257 


258  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tions  should  treat  us  on  the  sea.  Meantime  he  did  not  expect  so 
much  ill-treatment  on  the  sea  from  either  France  or  England  as 
had  been  suffered  a  few  years  before.  In  fact,  however,  he  was 
disappointed.  England  and  France  were  at  war,  in  a  life  or 
death  struggle  which  was  not  to  end  until  Waterloo,  and  neither 
of  them  could  afford  to  lose  a  single  point  in  the  tragic  game. 
Neutrality  was  an  empty  word  to  them.  "Inter  arma,  leges 
silent."  Each  was  determined  to  have  the  United  States,  with 
its  great  commerce,  for  an  ally,  or  else  to  prevent  it  from  trading 
with  the  enemy.  Both  pursued  that  course,  England  the  more 
vigorously  of  the  two  since  she  was  the  more  powerful  at  sea. 
And  after  the  battle  of  Trafalgar,  in  October,  1805,  in  which  Eng 
land  won  the  undisputed  mastery  of  the  seas,  American  commerce 
was  more  victimized  by  British  cruisers  than  ever  before.  "No 
two  countries  on  earth, ' '  said  Jefferson,  speaking  of  Great  Brit 
ain  and  America,  "have  so  many  points  of  common  interest  and 
friendship,  and  their  rulers  must  be  great  bunglers  indeed  if, 
with  such  dispositions,  they  break  them  asunder. "  But  asun 
der  they  were  broken,  and  the  drift  was  far  and  irretrievable 
in  that  direction  during  Jefferson's  own  administration. 

In  November,  1804,  he  confessed  that  American  vessels,  even 
in  our  own  harbor  waters,  were  not  safe  from.  British  depreda 
tions  and  attacks.  A  year  later  he  reported  to  Congress  that 
our  coasts  were  infested  and  our  harbors  watched  by  privateers, 
some  of  which  committed  acts  of  sheer  piracy.  ' '  They  have  cap 
tured  in  the  very  entrance  of  our  harbors  not  only  the  vessels 
of  our  friends  coming  to  trade  with  us,  but  our  own  also. ' '  Yet 
at  this  very  same  time  he  also  wrote :  l  i  We  begin  to  broach  the 
idea  that  we  consider  the  whole  Gulf  Stream  as  of  our  waters, 
in  which  hostilities  and  cruising  are  to  be  prohibited  so  soon  as 
either  consent  or  force  will  permit  us.  We  shall  never  permit 
another  privateer  to  cruise  within  it,  and  we  shall  forbid  our 
harbors  to  national  cruisers/'  Jefferson's  policy  was,  however, 
to  avoid  war.  He  believed  that  all  needed  pressure  could  be  ex 
erted  upon  any  nation  by  means  of  commercial  reprisals,  and  to 
this  policy  he  now  resorted.  In  the  winter  of  1805-06  he  se 
cured  the  adoption  by  Congress  of  resolutions  forbidding  the 
importation  of  such  goods  from  Great  Britain  as  might  be  pro 
duced  at  home  or  be  procured  from  some  other  country.  This 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      259 

so-called  Non-Importation  Act  was  for  a  time  used  merely  as  a 
menace  and  was  not  to  go  into  actual  effect  until  November  15 
following.  That,  he  vainly  hoped,  would  compel  Great  Britain 
to  respect  our  commerce.  The  answer  within  a  month  was  the 
firing  upon  an  American  vessel  in  American  coast  waters  and 
the  killing  of  one  of  her  men  by  a  British  cruiser.  Jefferson 
ordered  the  offender  out  of  American  waters,  but  was  unable  to 
enforce  the  order,  and  presently  apologized  for  having  made  it ! 
So  humiliating  was  the  result  of  his  navy-hating  policy.  He 
had  not  yet  learned  the  importance  of  sea-power  as  a  factor  in 
international  transactions.  At  the  opening  of  Congress  in  the 
fall  of  1806  he  expressed  an  expectation  that  before  the  session 
closed  he  would  be  able  to  report  a  complete  adjustment  of  af 
fairs  with  Great  Britain;  and  two  days  later  he  asked  for  the 
further  suspension  of  the  Non-Importation  Act,  which  had  not 
yet  been  put  into  force,  although  it  was  to  have  been  applied 
two  weeks  before,  and  this  was  granted. 

Monroe  and  William  Pinckney,  who  had  been  sent  to  coop 
erate  with  him,  were  meanwhile  busy  with  negotiations  at  Lon 
don.  Their  instructions  had  been  to  make  a  treaty  under  which 
Great  Britain  shoved  abandon  the  impressment  of  seamen  from 
American  ships,  repeal  certain  restrictions  upon  our  trade  in 
the  West  Indies,  and  make  indemnity  for  certain  seizures.  In 
return  for  these  concessions  they  were  authorized  to  promise  that 
the  Non-Importation  Act  would  not  be  enforced.  But  it  was 
impossible  to  make  a  treaty  on  these  terms,  and  so  the  envoys 
followed  Jay's  example  and  made  the  best  terms  they  could. 
They  made  a  treaty  which  did  not  mention  impressment,  though 
in  an  appended  note  the  British  commissioners  promised  that 
care  should  be  taken  not  to  impress  bona  fide  Americans  and  that 
redress  should  be  given  for  all  injuries  inflicted  in  the  taking  of 
British  deserters.  No  indemnity  was  provided  for  the  seizures, 
but  most  of  the  restrictions  were  removed  from  American  com 
merce  in  the  West  Indies.  It  was,  moreover,  provided  that  for 
ten  years  thereafter  the  United  States  would  not  discriminate 
against  British  commerce.  This  treaty  was  submitted  to  Jef 
ferson  in  March,  1807,  and  was  instantly  regarded  by  him  as 
unacceptable,  chiefly  because  it  did  not  put  a  stop  to  the  im 
pressment  of  American  seamen  by  the  British  navy,  which  was 


260  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

by  far  the  most  galling  of  our  grievances.  Now  Jefferson  was 
not  willing  to  go  to  war  to  stop  such  outrages,  but  neither  would 
he  seem  to  condone  them  by  accepting  a  treaty  which  passed 
them  over  as  negligible.  So  without  reporting  it  to  the  Senate 
he  sent  the  treaty  back  to  Monroe  with  orders  to  try  again  on 
a  very  different  basis.  The  great  British  minister,  Pitt,  mean 
while  had  died,  and  the  foreign  office  was  occupied  by  Canning, 
who  was  less  amicably  inclined.  The  very  day  after  negotiations 
were  resumed,  word  came  that  the  British  ship  Leopard,  in  quest 
of  deserters,  had  fired  upon  the  American  cruiser  Chesapeake 
in  our  own  coast  waters,  killing  and  wounding  several  men ;  and 
had  boarded  her  and  carried  off  four  sailors.  These  men  really 
were  deserters  from  British  ships,  although  three  of  them  were 
native  American  citizens.  One  of  these  captives  was  taken  to 
Halifax  and  hanged  as  a  deserter.  The  fact  is  that  at  this  time 
many  Americans  did  ship  as  seamen  on  British  vessels,  for  the 
sake  of  profit  and  adventure ;  and  many  of  them  deserted,  largely 
because  of  the  brutally  harsh  treatment  which  prevailed  in  the 
British  service.  But  in  addition  to  taking  such  deserters,  the 
British  undoubtedly  seized  hundreds  and  perhaps  thousands  of 
Americans  upon  whom  they  had  no  claim.  Another  circum 
stance  which  must  be  considered  was  that  at  that  time  the  British 
government  did  not  concede  the  right  of  its  subjects  to  expatriate 
themselves.  Once  a  British  subject,  always  a  British  subject, 
was  its  rule.  Consequently,  when  Englishmen  deserted  to 
America  and  procured  certificates  of  naturalization,  it  ignored 
that  procedure  and  claimed  that  they  were  still  its  subjects. 
The  action  of  the  Leopard  toward  the  Chesapeake  was  taken 
without  orders  from  the  British  government,  upon  the  personal 
initiative  and  authority  of  the  naval  commander  at  Halifax,  who 
instructed  his  captains  to  search  American  ships  for  deserters 
and  also  to  permit  Americans  to  search  their  British  ships  for  de 
serters  from  the  American  service,  if  they  had  cause  to  suspect 
their  presence  there.  The  exceptional  violence  of  this  incident, 
however,  interrupted  negotiations  in  London  and  convulsed 
America  with  rage.  ' '  Never, ' '  said  Jefferson, ' l  since  the  battle  of 
Lexington  have  I  seen  this  country  in  such  a  state  of  exasperation 
as  at  present."  Yet  he  exercised  restraint.  He  anticipated 
war,  but  he  purposed  giving  England  time  for  disavowal  and 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      261 

reparation,  and  also  giving  our  own  country  time  for  warlike 
preparations  which  his  own  anti-naval  policy  had  incapacitated 
it  for  making.  A  vessel  was  sent  to  England  with  a  demand  for 
reparation,  and  Congress  was  called  together  in  special  session. 
The  outcome  of  it  all  was  that  England,  some  months  later,  sent 
a  special  envoy  over  to  discuss  the  matter. 

England  and  France  were  now  increasingly  intent  upon  injur 
ing  each  other  by  cutting  off  supplies  of  the  necessaries  of  life 
from  neutral  countries,  and  particularly  from  America.  In 
1806  the  British  government  declared  a  blockade  of  the  coast  of 
Europe  from  the  River  Elbe  to  the  port  of  Brest,  but  let  it  be 
known  that  it  would  be  strictly  enforced  only  between  Ostend 
and  Havre.  The  French  government,  or  the  emperor,  replied 
with  a  decree  from  the  conquered  capital  of  Berlin,  declaring 
a  complete  blockade  of  the  British  Isles  and  prohibiting  all  trade 
and  communication  with  them;  though,  of  course,  since  the 
French  navy  had  been  practically  destroyed,  it  was  impossible 
for  this  decree  to  be  enforced.  The  British  retort  was  an  order 
in  council,  in  January,  1807,  forbidding  all  foreign  vessels  to 
trade  in  European  ports  which  were  under  French  control,  or 
from  which  British  commerce  was  excluded.  Later  in  that  year 
other  orders  proclaimed  a  blockade  of  all  ports  from  which  the 
British  flag  was  excluded,  declared  unlawful  all  trade  in  articles 
coming  from  such  ports,  and  provided  that  neutral  vessels  which 
were  warned  away  from  such  ports  might  proceed  to  some  open 
port  on  payment  of  a  fee  to  the  British  government.  To  this 
the  French  reply  was  a  decree  from  Milan,  to  the  effect  that 
every  neutral  ship  which  submitted  to  British  search,  or  paid  a 
fee  or  tax  to  the  British  government,  or  was  on  the  way  to  a  Brit 
ish  port,  should  be  seized  and  confiscated. 

Both  these  policies  were  severe,  as  war  measures  generally 
are.  But  those  of  France  were  by  far  the  worse.  The  British 
policy  gave  neutral  traders  fair  warning  and  a  chance  to  go  else 
where  with  their  cargoes.  The  French  policy  was  that  of  arbi 
trary  confiscation.  An  American  merchant  ship,  for  example, 
which  was  caught  by  a  British  privateer,  taken  into  a  British 
port  against  its  will  in  spite  of  its  resistance,  and  then  released, 
was  seized  and  confiscated  by  the  French.  Others  were  similarly 
seized  just  because  they  had  been  spoken  at  sea  by  English  ships 


262  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

before  the  French  decrees  were  issued.  In  some  cases  vessels 
were  seized  while  actually  entering  French  ports.  While,  how 
ever,  the  French  policy  was  by  far  the  more  oppressive  and  un 
just,  the  paucity  of  French  sea  power  made  its  enforcement 
comparatively  limited  in  extent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  vast 
sea  power  of  England  enabled  her  to  enforce  her  milder  orders 
almost  everywhere.  The  result  was  that  American  commerce 
suffered  far  more  from  British  than  from  French  interference, 
and  American  resentment  and  wrath  rose  against  Great  Britain 
far  more  than  against  France.  Certainly  American  commerce 
was  in  a  grave  dilemma.  Our  ships  must  comply  with  certain 
regulations  or  else  be  seized  by  British  cruisers,  while  if  they 
did  comply  with  them,  they  would  be  subject  to  seizure  by  the 
French.  The  case  might  have  been  described  by  Lorenzo  Dow's 
epigram  on  predestination : 

"You'll  be  damned  if  you  do;  you'll  be  damned  if  you  don't." 
American  commerce  was  thus  confined  to  our  own  domestic 
waters,  and  even  there  it  was  not  safe  from  search  and  from 
impressment,  as  the  Leopard  and  Chesapeake  incident  demon 
strated.  Literally,  thousands  of  American  seamen  were  seized 
by  the  British  under  the  pretense  that  they  were  British  desert 
ers,  and  many  of  them  were  shockingly  ill  used.  The  climax 
seemed  to  be  reached  when  the  British  government  sent  its 
special  envoy,  Mr.  Rose,  a  member  of  the  cabinet,  to  treat  on  the 
Leopard-Chesapeake  incident,  but  charged  him  with  conditions 
which  made  his  mission  a  failure  in  advance.  He  came  hither, 
reported  his  orders,  and  sailed  for  home  again.  Jefferson's 
reply  to  these  things  was  a  complete  embargo.  At  his  behest 
Congress  enacted  a  law  forbidding  American  vessels  to  depart 
from  American  harbors.  The  Non-Intercourse  Act  went  into 
force  at  the  same  time.  Since  England  and  France  would  not 
respect  American  commerce,  and  since  we  were  ourselves  unable 
to  protect  it,  our  commerce  was  ordered  by  act  of  Congress  to 
go  out  of  existence.  This  policy  might  have  been  justifiable  if 
it  had  been  accompanied  with  vigorous  preparations  to  give  our 
commerce  the  protection  to  which  it  was  entitled.  But  nothing 
of  that  sort  was  done.  The  result  was  that  the  embargo  harmed 
us  a  great  deal  more  than  it  harmed  either  England  or  France, 
and  instead  of  averting  war  it  actually  provoked  it  by  greatly 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      263 

embittering  the  feelings  between  America  and  Great  Britain. 
Jefferson  himself  seemed  to  realize  this,  for  six  months  after  the 
establishment  of  the  embargo  he  declared  that  the  time  was  not 
distant  when  war  would  be  preferable  to  its  continuance.  In 
the  fall  of  1808  he  confessed  to  Congress  that  the  embargo,  his 
' '  candid  and  liberal  experiment, ' '  had  failed  of  its  purpose,  and 
that  Congress  itself  must  decide  what  the  future  course  should 
be.  Meantime  we  suffered  the  humiliation  of  insult  added  to 
injury.  When  Pinckney  in  London  told  Canning  that  the 
United  States  would  repeal  the  embargo  if  England  would  re 
scind  the  orders  in  council,  Canning  scornfully  replied  that  he 
was  not  minded  to  change  British  policy  just  to  help  America  out 
of  the  scrape  it  had  put  itself  into.  As  for  the  French  emperor, 
he  ordered  the  seizure  of  every  American  vessel  that  could  be 
found  anywhere,  saying  that  this  was  out  of  friendship  for  the 
United  States,  to  prevent  its  ships  from  sailing  in  violation  of 
the  law!  To  this  state  were  American  commercial  relations 
brought,  at  the  close  of  Jefferson's  administration. 

In  passing,  we  must  here  notice  some  other  features  of  our 
foreign  relations  at  this  time.  In  May,  1803,  a  convention  was 
made  between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  concerning 
the  Canada  and  New  England  boundary.  In  1804  the  Lewis  and 
Clarke  expedition  was  sent  to  the  Oregon  coast,  to  secure  for  the 
United  States  a  frontage  on  the  Pacific  Ocean,  with  the  vast  ex 
tension  of  foreign  relations  which  that  implied,  and  especially 
with  a  direct  contact  and  presently  something  like  a  clash  with 
Russia  over  her  pretensions  in  that  region.  For  Russia  laid 
claim  to  the  whole  coast  down  to  Bodega  Bay  in  California,  a 
little  north  of  San  Francisco,  where  she  planted  a  garrison  in 
1806.  A  treaty  was  made  with  Tripoli  in  1805,  under  which 
American  prisoners  were  ransomed  and  relations  were  estab 
lished  between  the  two  countries  which  continued  unbroken 
thereafter  as  long  as  Tripoli  remained  a  sovereign  power.  It 
was  made  as  a  result  of  a  vigorous  attack  upon  Tripoli  by  a 
competent  American  squadron;  a  demonstration  of  the  utility 
of  that  naval  power  which  Jefferson  so  much  abhorred. 

Jefferson's  administration  was  also  marked  with  some  interest 
ing  negotiations  with  Russia.  On  November  11,  1803,  Levett 
Harris,  one  of  Jefferson's  Pennsylvania  retainers,  was  appointed 


264  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

consul  at  St.  Petersburg,  although  there  was  still  no  treaty  be 
tween  the  two  countries,  and  he  soon  got  himself  received  at 
court  with  ''flattering  attentions/'  When  the  United  States 
frigate  Philadelphia  was  stranded  at  Tripoli  and  captured,  the 
Russian  emperor  interposed  his  good  offices  for  the  release  of 
the  crew,  and  for  this  Jefferson  wrote  him  a  letter  of  thanks. 
Between  Alexander  and  Jefferson  there  then  arose  a  strong 
mutual  admiration,  and  occasional  correspondence  followed.  It 
was  Jefferson's  conviction  that  the  friendship  of  the  emperor 
for  the  United  States  was  strong  and  sincere,  and  that  through 
out  his  reign  Russia  would  of  all  powers  on  earth  be  the  most 
friendly  to  the  United  States.  From  these  opinions  and  utter 
ances  of  Jefferson's  arose  the  legend  of  Russia's  ''traditional 
friendship"  for  America. 

The  emperor  congratulated  Jefferson  on  his  reelection  to  a 
second  term,  and  wrote  his  regrets  at  his  refusal  to  be  a  candi 
date  for  a  third  term.  In  May,  1808,  the  Russia  foreign  minister 
asked  for  the  negotiation  of  a  treaty  regulating  trade  with  the 
natives  of  Alaska,  but  nothing  was  done  at  that  time.  A  month 
later  the  Russian  government  appointed  Andre  Daschkoff  con 
sul-general  at  Philadelphia  and  charge  d'affaires  at  Washing 
ton,  and  at  about  the  same  time  Jefferson  sent  William  Short  as 
minister  plenipotentiary  to  St.  Petersburg,  to  secure  the  aid  of 
Russia  in  protecting  American  commerce  against  the  aggressions 
of  Great  Britain  and  France.  This  was  to  be  a  special  mission, 
not  permanent,  and  Short  was  sent  secretly,  without  the  Sen 
ate's  knowledge.  In  Paris,  Short  met  Count  Romanzoff,  the 
Russian  chancellor  and  minister  for  foreign  affairs,  and  dis 
cussed  intimately  with  him  the  relations  of  the  two  countries. 
As  winter  then  came  on,  he  decided  to  remain  in  Paris  until 
spring,  awaiting  news  of  his  confirmation  by  the  Senate  and 
further  instructions  from  Jefferson.  But  Jefferson  did  not  send 
the  nomination  to  the  Senate  until  February,  1809,  a  few  days 
before  the  end  of  his  administration,  and  then  it  was  rejected. 
In  consequence  Short  did  not  go  on  to  Russia.  But  before  news 
of  this  reached  St.  Petersburg  the  emperor,  assuming  that  Short 's 
nomination  was  confirmed,  appointed  Count  Pahlen  to  be  minis 
ter  to  the  United  States.  In  June,  1809,  Daschkoff  arrived  at 
Washington  and  was  received  as  charge  d'affaires. 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      265 

One  other  feature  of  our  foreign  relations  under  Jefferson 
needs  notice,  as  a  reminder  of  the  part  which  personal  and  social 
relations  may  still  play  in  affairs  of  State.  In  his  intense  democ 
racy  Jefferson  ignored  many  of  the  conventionalities  which  had 
prevailed  under  the  Washington  and  Adams  administrations 
and  which,  of  course,  still  more  prevailed  at  European  courts. 
He  ignored  the  rules  of  precedence  among  official  callers,  and  ex 
ercised  the  free-and-easy  hospitality  which  had  been  his  boast 
on  his  Virginia  plantation.  When  Anthony  Merry,  therefore, 
called  at  the  White  House  to  present  his  credentials  as  British 
minister,  wearing  an  elaborate  court  suit,  Jefferson  received  him 
clad  in  a  much  worn,  faded,  and  soiled  every-day  suit,  and  wear 
ing  a  pair  of  slippers  without  heels.  A  little  later  Jefferson 
invited  Merry  to  a  dinner  at  which  the  French  charge  d'affaires 
was  present,  although  England  and  France  were  then  at  war; 
and  when  the  door  of  the  dining-room  was  opened,  Jefferson  took 
Mrs.  Madison  on  his  arm  and  walked  in,  leaving  his  guests  to 
follow  helter-skelter  and  seat  themselves  at  table  as  best  they 
could.  Had  Merry  been  himself  a  man  of  good  breeding  and 
refined  taste,  even  such  extraordinary  etiquette  would  have 
caused  no  serious  trouble.  But  he  was  ill-bred,  stupid,  and  a 
stickler  for  every  possible  formality,  and  he  persisted  in  regard 
ing  Jefferson's  conduct  as  deliberately  intended  to  be  insulting 
to  him  and  to  his  Government.  At  about  the  same  time  some 
marked  social  discourtesies  were  shown  to  Monroe  in  London; 
and  these  incidents  not  only  indicated  a  growing  estrangement 
between  the  two  countries,  but  actually  contributed  to  its  prog 
ress  in  a  material  degree.  The  gross  result  was  that  in  March, 
1809,  Jefferson  retired  from  the  Presidency,  leaving  the  foreign 
relations  of  the  country  in  a  particularly  humiliating  and  om 
inous  condition. 

He  was  succeeded  by  Madison,  who  had  been  his  secretary  of 
state  and  who  was  fully  committed  to  a  continuance  of  his  policy. 
To  such  a  course,  indeed,  Madison  pledged  himself  in  his  inau 
gural  address :  i '  To  cherish  peace  and  friendly  intercourse  with 
all  nations  having  corresponding  dispositions,"  and  "to  prefer 
in  all  cases  amicable  discussion  and  reasonable  accommodation 
of  differences  to  a  decision  of  them  by  an  appeal  to  arms. ' '  But 
the  legacy  of  European  complications  which  he  received  from  his 


266  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

predecessor  was  so  heavy  as  to  force  him  to  break  the  peace  which 
he  wished  to  cherish,  and  to  resort  to  the  warfare  which  he 
abhorred.  The  unhappy  Merry  had  been  replaced  as  British 
minister  at  Washington  by  David  M.  Erskine,  who  had  married 
an  American  wife  and  was  strongly  inclined  toward  friendly 
relations  with  America.  Indeed,  he  was  quite  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  Tory  government  at  London,  being  himself  a  Whig  in 
politics.  Unfortunately  he  was  thus  led  to  give  the  American 
government  too  favorable  an  impression  of  British  official  sen 
timents  toward  this  country.  Still  more  unfortunately,  he  got 
from  Gallatin  an  erroneous  idea  that  Madison  was  opposed  to 
the  embargo  policy  and  was  much  more  kindly  disposed  toward 
England  than  Jefferson  had  been.  Early  in  1809  Erskine  was 
instructed  by  Canning  to  make  if  possible  a  treaty  under  which 
the  fullest  possible  reparation  should  be  made  for  the  Leopard- 
Chesapeake  affair,  provided  that  America  would  exclude  French 
and  British  naval  vessels  alike  and  impartially  from  its  waters, 
and  would  disavow  retention  of  British  deserters  and  agree  not 
to  harbor  any  more  of  them.  The  orders  in  council  were  to  be 
rescinded  if  America  would  repeal  the  Non-Importation  and  Em 
bargo  Acts  so  far  as  Great  Britain  was  concerned  while  retain 
ing  them  for  France,  and  would  permit  British  vessels  to  cap 
ture  American  vessels  which  engaged  in  the  prohibited  trade 
with  France.  Erskine  did  not  show  the  text  of  his  instructions 
at  Washington,  but  he  gave  the  substance  of  them,  with  most  of 
the  harshnes's  omitted  and  with  some  rose-color  added. 

The  consequences  were  disastrous.  Deluded  into  false  con 
ceptions  of  British  friendliness,  and  false  expectations  of  the 
prompt  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  orders  in  council,  Robert  Smith, 
our  secretary  of  state — not  a  good  man  for  the  place,  by  the  way 
— hastened  into  arrangements  with  Erskine  for  the  resumption 
of  normal  relations  between  the  two  countries.  Erskine  an 
nounced  that  the  orders  in  council  would  be  withdrawn  on  June 
10,  1809,  Madison  issued  a  proclamation  renewing  intercourse 
with  Great  Britain,  and  the  vessels  which  had  been  lying  idle  at 
American  wharves  were  loaded  with  cargoes  and  despatched  to 
Europe  to  reach  ports  there  as  soon  as  the  orders  were  with 
drawn.  Then  came  the  news  from  England  that,  while  a  former 
order  in  council  had  been  withdrawn,  a  new  one  declared  the 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      267 

ports  of  Holland,  France,  and  Italy  to  be  still  blockaded.  It 
was  also  announced  that  the  British  foreign  office  repudiated 
Erskine  and  all  his  works  and  had  recalled  him  from  his  mis 
sion.  With  admirable  fairness,  however,  Canning  said  that  all 
American  vessels  which  had  been  sent  out  relying  upon  Er 
skine 's  representations  should  be  permitted  to  go  unmolested  to 
their  destinations. 

Erskine 's  successor  was  Francis  James  Jackson,  who  was 
frankly  described  by  Canning  to  Pinckney  as  the  possessor  of  all 
those  British  characteristics  which  were  sometimes  offensive  to 
other  nations.  Jackson  showed  himself  worthy  of  this  account. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  arrogant  and  despotic  of  men,  and  he 
came  hither  with  instructions  of  the  most  offensive  character. 
On  entering  upon  negotiations  he  comported  himself  in  a  way 
which  soon  gave  Madison  cause  to  hint  pretty  plainly  that  he 
must  mend  his  manners  if  he  wished  to  remain  at  his  post.  Jack 
son  replied  that  he  would  do  as  he  pleased,  and  Madison 's  retort 
was  a  curt  notification  that  no  further  communications  would 
be  received  from  him.  Jackson  thereupon  departed  from  the 
capital.  He  lingered  in  New  England  for  a  time,  seeking  con 
solation  from  political  opponents  of  the  administration  and  hop 
ing  that  his  own  Government  would  support  him  in  the  course 
he  had  pursued.  But  it  did  not,  and  he  presently  sailed  for 
home.  Soon  afterward  Smith,  who  had  in  this  affair  shown  his 
unfitness  for  the  state  department,  was  retired  and  his  place  was 
taken  by  the  expert  and  forceful  James  Monroe. 

While  these  transactions  with  England  were  taking  place, 
French  relations  were  by  no  means  stagnant.  The  French  min 
ister  at  Washington  was  General  Turreau,  and  he  had  been  much 
chagrined  over  Erskine 's  negotiations,  which  he  feared  would 
work  great  harm  to  France.  Armstrong  at  Paris  meantime  was 
suggesting  that  a  repeal  of  the  hostile  decrees  would  be  followed 
by  a  repeal  of  our  Non-Intercourse  Act  as  applied  to  France, 
and  he  succeeded  in  securing  a  new  decree  to  the  effect  that  in 
asmuch  as  the  United  States  had  obtained  revocation  of  the 
British  orders  in  council,  the  Milan  Decree  should  be  withdrawn. 
But  hard  upon  this  came  the  news  that  the  British  government 
had  repudiated  Erskine 's  promises,  and  the  French  government 
ordered  the  confiscation  of  every  American  ship  that  might  en- 


268  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ter  the  ports  of  France,  Spain,  Italy,  or  Holland.  This  decree 
was  never  published,  but  the  framing  of  it  brought  France 
and  America  within  measurable  distance  of  war.  After  much 
debate  Congress  early  in  1810  enacted  a  bill  repealing  the  Non- 
Intercourse  Act  and  authorizing  the  President  to  prohibit  com 
merce  with  either  England  or  France  in  case  the  other  nation 
should  before  March  3  abandon  its  policy  of  warring  upon  neu 
trals,  leaving  Americans  meanwhile  free  to  trade  with  both. 

There  then  came  on  as  a  prelude  to  war  one  of  the  most  ex 
traordinary  passages  in  American  history.  For  a  full  under 
standing  of  it  we  must  consider  carefully  the  conditions  of  the 
three  countries  concerned.  The  United  States  was  at  that  time 
increasing  in  population,  wealth,  industries,  and  commerce  at  a 
rapid  rate,  and  it  had  all  the  ambition  and  aggressiveness  of  an 
expanding  young  country.  Between  1800  and  1810  our  popu 
lation  had  increased  more  than  35  per  cent.  Four  new  States 
had  been  added  to  the  original  thirteen,  and  half  a  dozen  more 
territories  were  preparing  for  statehood.  In  the  Louisiana  Pur 
chase  the  United  States  had  at  last  risen  to  the  full  self -con 
sciousness  of  complete  nationality ;  it  now  demanded  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  all  the  privileges  of  that  status ;  and  it  was  growing 
more  and  more  impatient  and  resentful  of  the  restraint  which 
was  put  upon  it  by  the  lingering  influences  of  the  old  European 
system. 

France  was  under  the  absolute  autocracy  of  the  Emperor  Na 
poleon,  who  had  subjugated  to  his  control  nearly  all  of  the  Euro 
pean  continent,  save  Russia,  and  who  was  seeking,  as  the  supreme 
achievement  of  his  life,  the  conquest  of  Great  Britain,  the  only 
power  on  earth  that  opposed  him  with  consistent  and  effective 
resistance.  To  compass  that  conquest  he  was  willing  to  adopt 
any  measure,  and  to  make  any  sacrifice.  Even  at  that  time, 
because  of  the  density  of  its  population  and  the  smallness  of  its 
area,  Great  Britain  was  largely  dependent  upon  foreign  com 
merce  with  America,  and  the  emperor  conceived  the  idea  that  if 
he  could  interrupt  that  trade  and  thus  isolate  Great  Britain 
from  the  rest  of  the  world,  he  could  starve  the  " nation  of  shop 
keepers  "  into  submission.  With  that  end  in  view  he  engaged 
in  a  policy  of  characteristic  duplicity  toward  the  United  States. 
He  sought  to  avoid  the  threatened  war  with  this  country,  which 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      269 

would  have  been  disastrous  to  him,  and  therefore  instructed  his 
foreign  minister,  the  Duke  of  Cadore,  to  tell  our  minister  at 
Paris,  General  Armstrong,  that  the  hostile  and  offensive  Berlin 
and  Milan  decrees  would  be  abrogated,  so  far  as  America  was 
concerned,  on  and  after  November  1,  1810 ;  provided  that  Great 
Britain  meanwhile  withdrew  her  orders  in  council,  or,  in  default 
of  that,  that  the  United  States  declared  nonintercourse  with 
that  country.  Thus  France  would  revoke  decrees  which  she  was 
unable  effectively  to  enforce,  and  in  return  would  either  have 
the  blockade  of  her  coasts  removed  or  secure  America  as  an  ally. 
In  making  this  specious  proposal,  Napoleon  was  profuse  in  his 
expressions  of  love  for  America  and  of  desire  for  its  prosperity. 
Yet  at  the  same  time  he  issued  a  decree  condemning  all  Ameri 
can  vessels  which  had  recently  arrived  in  French  ports,  and 
imposing  upon  all  thereafter  a  vexatious  license  fee  and  a  sys 
tem  of  secret  cipher  letters  by  which  alone  they  would  be  per 
mitted  to  enter  the  ports  of  France.  His  scheme  was  to  delude 
America  with  an  appearance  of  commercial  freedom  and  thus 
tempt  this  country  into  a  course  which  would  lead  straight  to 
war  with  Great  Britain.  Unhappily,  our  Government  fell  into 
the  trap.  Madison  was  a  man  of  so  transparent  integrity  that 
he  seemed  to  be  incapable  of  recognizing  duplicity  in  others. 
So  he  took  Napoleon 's  professions  at  their  face  value.  Believing 
that  all  French  restrictions  upon  American  commerce  had  been 
abolished  in  good  faith,  he  demanded  the  same  of  Great  Britain, 
and,  not  securing  a  favorable  reply,  on  November  2,  1810,  he 
proclaimed  nonintercourse  with  that  country,  beginning  on  Feb 
ruary  2,  1811. 

Meantime  Great  Britain  was  practically  alone  in  the  world, 
with  her  back  to  the  wall,  fighting  for  life,  and  in  that  desperate 
conflict  she  would  hesitate  at  nothing  that  would  be  to  her  ad 
vantage.  Her  Government  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Tory  party, 
which  consisted  largely  of  landlords  and  merchants.  Now  both 
of  these  classes  were  directly  benefited  by  the  suppression  of 
American  commerce,  the  merchants  because  it  threw  the  carry 
ing  trade  of  the  world  into  their  hands,  and  the  landowners 
because  the  shutting  off  of  American  supplies  meant  higher 
prices  for  their  own  agricultural  produce.  Under  their  influ 
ence,  therefore,  the  Government  was  not  inclined  to  move  toward 


270  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

freer  American  trade,  but  was  quite  content  to  let  the  Non- 
Intercourse  and  Embargo  Acts  prevail  until  America  herself 
got  tired  of  them.  It  had  little  fear  of  anything  worse,  partly 
because  of  Madison's  well-known  aversion  to  war,  and  partly 
because  it  got  most  of  its  information  of  American  affairs  from 
sources  which  were  friendly  to  Great  Britain.  The  American 
administration  party  was  supposed  to  be  for  peace  at  any  price, 
and  the  opposition  party  was  composed  of  sympathizers  with 
Great  Britain.  Therefore  there  was  nothing  to  fear.  The 
American  minister  in  London,  William  Pinckney,  did  his  best 
to  dispel  this  delusion,  'but  in  vain.  The  British  foreign  minis 
ter  was  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley,  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Well 
ington.  He  was  exceedingly  friendly  toward  Pinckney  and 
toward  America,  but  would  make  no  concessions.  Indeed,  he 
was  probably  unable  to  do  so,  for  the  insanity  of  George  III 
made  the  establishment  of  a  regency  necessary,  with  a  prospect 
of  a  complete  change  of  ministry.  Moreover,  he  saw  that  Na 
poleon's  professed  abrogation  of  the  decrees  was  delusive,  and 
therefore  declined  to  withdraw  the  orders  in  council  until  the 
decrees  were  effectively  abolished.  The  result  was  that  in 
March,  1811,  Pinckney  came  home  on  leave  of  absence.  For 
some  time  the  British  legation  at  Washington  was  in  the  charge 
of  a  secretary,  or  charge  d  'affaires,  but  now  a  new  and  acceptable 
minister,  Augustus  J.  Foster,  was  sent  to  this  country,  and,  as 
already  mentioned,  Monroe  became  secretary  of  state  at  Wash 
ington. 

One  other  factor  of  great  importance,  already  referred  to, 
meanwhile  entered  into  the  problem.  This  was  the  establish 
ment  of  relations  the  United  States  and  Russia,  the  only  im 
portant  continental  power  that  was  not  in  some  measure  subject 
to  French  control.  Thus  far  no  treaty  had  been  made  between 
America  and  Russia.  Indeed,  Russia  had  never  yet  formally 
recognized  American  independence,  and  might  have  been  sup 
posed  still  to  cherish  the  sympathy  with  England  and  the  hos 
tility  toward  America  which  had  been  shown  during  our  Revo 
lution.  But  at  the  very  end  of  his  administration  Jefferson  had 
determined  to  send  a  minister  to  Russia.  His  nominee  for  that 
place,  as  already  related,  was  rejected  by  the  Senate.  But  soon 
afterward  his  successor,  Madison,  selected  for  the  place  the  son 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      271 

of  Jefferson's  old  colleague  and  foe,  John  Adams.  This  envoy, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  still  a  young  man  but  destined  to  become 
one  of  our  greatest  statesmen,  particularly  in  foreign  affairs, 
did  not  go  to  Russia  until  the  fall  of  1809.  But  then  it  was  his 
fortune  to  arrive  at  the  czar's  capital  at  the  psychological  mo 
ment.  Indeed,  on  his  way  thither  he  was  abruptly  plunged  into 
important  diplomatic  transactions.  England  and  Denmark  were 
then  at  war,  and  every  ship  passing  in  or  out  of  the  Baltic  had  to 
endure  searching  scrutiny.  The  American  merchantman  upon 
which  Adams  and  his  family  traveled  was  first  overhauled  by  a 
British  cruiser,  and  allowed  to  proceed.  A  few  hours  later  a 
Danish  cruiser  repeated  the  performance,  and  ordered  the  vessel 
to  Christiansand.  There  Adams  found  thirty-eight  other  Amer 
ican  vessels,  which  had  been  held  captive  for  months,  awaiting 
action  of  the  prize  court.  Sixteen  of  them  had  been  condemned, 
and  had  appealed  to  a  higher  court.  The  spectacle  of  these  ships 
thus  detained  aroused  Adams's  patriotic  wrath  and  zeal,  and  he 
resolved  to  seek,  on  his  own  initiative,  relief  from  such  oppres 
sion. 

Adams's  reception  by  the  Russian  emperor  occurred  on  No 
vember  5,  1809,  and  it  was  noteworthy  in  two  respects.  One 
was,  that  it  was  the  first  reception  of  an  American  minister  by  a 
Russian  sovereign,  and  thus  marked  for  the  first  time,  after 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  American  independence,  full 
recognition  of  this  country  by  the  power  which  has  so  often 
been  called  our  ''traditional  friend."  The  other  was,  that  the 
interview  was  private,  no  third  person  being  present.  At  this 
interview  Adams  promptly  entered  upon  the  practical  business 
of  his  mission,  especially  in  soliciting  the  intervention  of  the  em 
peror  in  behalf  of  American  commerce.  He  represented  to  him 
that,  because  of  nonintercourse  with  most  of  western  Europe,  an 
unusually  large  proportion  of  American  commerce  sought  the 
Baltic  ports,  and  it  was  a  great  hardship  to  have  it  thus  seized. 
He  also  reminded  the  emperor  that  his  predecessor,  the  Empress 
Catherine,  had  given  her  adherence  to  the  principle  of  the  im 
munity  of  neutrals  from  capture,  and  on  that  ground  he  be 
sought  the  emperor  to  vindicate  that  principle  in  the  seas  adja 
cent  to  his  domain.  The  emperor  responded  in  a  most  cordial 
manner.  He  expressed  strong  disapproval  of  England's  mari- 


272  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

time  policy,  and  promised  to  promote  so  far  as  possible  commerce 
between  his  own  empire  and  America.  Between  these  two  coun 
tries,  he  said,  there  was  no  occasion  for  jealousy  or  rivalry,  but 
there  was  a  possibility  of  mutually  advantageous  cooperation. 
He  added  the  interesting  remark,  doubly  interesting  in  view  of 
his  own  acts  six  or  seven  years  later,  that  it  was  a  wise  and  just 
policy  for  the  United  States  to  keep  itself  disconnected  from 
the  politics  of  Europe  and  the  disturbances  to  which  the  coun 
tries  of  that  continent  were  subject;  and  he  pledged  him 
self  to  do  nothing  to  withdraw  the  United  States  from  that  atti 
tude. 

This  interview  had  prompt  and  highly  important  results.  The 
emperor  had  been  wavering  on  the  edge  of  indecision,  whether 
to  side  with  or  against  Napoleon.  If  he  decided  for  Napoleon,  he 
would  approve  the  Danish  seizures  of  American  commerce  and 
exclude  American  ships  from  his  ports.  If  he  decided  against 
him,  he  would  be  hospitable  to  American  ships  and  would  pro 
tect  them  in  the  Baltic.  Adams's  representations  turned  the 
scale.  Alexander  I  decided  to  break  with  Napoleon  and  to  defy 
his  power,  and  one  of  the  first  results  of  that  decision  was  a  per 
emptory  message  to  Denmark  that  the  emperor  was  not  pleased 
with  the  seizures  of  American  vessels,  and  wished  them  to  be 
restored  forthwith  to  their  owners ;  which  was  done.  Following 
this,  an  imperial  decree  was  issued,  welcoming  American  com 
merce  to  the  Russian  Empire.  A  little  later,  Sweden  issued  a 
similar  decree.  This  triumph  of  Adams's  diplomacy  was  the 
more  noteworthy  for  the  fact  that  we  had  at  that  time  no  treaty 
relations  whatever  with  Russia;  not  even  a  commercial  treaty. 
We  must  doubt  that  the  Russian  government  had  any  especial 
love  for  America,  or  sympathy  with  American  institutions.  It 
more  probably  was  moved  to  the  course  it  took  by  selfish  con 
siderations.  In  the  then  existing  condition  of  Russia,  imports 
from  America  were  much  needed.  Also,  the  emperor  was  ambi 
tious  to  pose,  in  rivalry  to  Napoleon,  as  the  arbiter  of  Europe. 
Indeed,  Count  Romanzoff  frankly  told  Adams  that  there  were 
strong  prejudices  and  predilections  in  Russia  in  favor  of  Eng 
land,  and  that  the  Russian  government  would  cultivate  relations 
with  America  only  because  it  was,  in  existing  circumstances,  to 
its  interest  to  do  so.  England  was  arrogating  to  herself  too 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      273 

much  authority  on  the  sea,  and  it  was  necessary  for  some  other 
great  commercial  State  to  arise  as  her  rival.  Russia  recognized 
America  to  be  such  a  State,  and  would  therefore  support  her. 
But,  for  whatever  reason,  Russia  became  at  this  time,  and  for  a 
short  time,  our  most  useful  if  not  our  only  active  friend  in  Eu 
rope. 

It  should  be  recalled  in  passing  that  under  the  treaty  of  Til 
sit,  in  1807,  Bonaparte  had  required  the  exclusion  of  British 
commerce  from  Russia.  But  Russia  had  to  have  foreign  trade, 
such  as  only  Great  Britain  or  America  could  supply,  and  she 
therefore  turned  to  the  United  States  for  it.  This  was  displeas 
ing  to  Bonaparte,  who  had  put  American  commerce  also  under 
his  ban,  and  in  order  to  keep  peace  with  France  the  Russian 
government  had  to  resort  to  false  pretenses.  It  affected  to  en 
force  Bonaparte 's  decrees  against  American  vessels,  and  in  1810 
excluded  many  of  them,  or  their  cargoes,  from  Russian  ports. 
So  shrewdly  was  this  done  that  Adams  was  deceived,  and  made 
appeals  against  this  ill-treatment ;  with  the  result  that  after  some 
delay  his  appeals  were  always  granted  and  the  vessels  were  ad 
mitted.  But  Bonaparte  was  not  deceived.  Seeing  that  Russia 
was  playing  him  false,  on  October  23,  1810,  he  ordered  the  czar 
to  seize  all  American  ships  in  his  harbors  and  confiscate  their 
cargoes.  On  December  1  the  czar  explicitly  refused  to  do  this, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  same  month  he  issued  a  decree  opening  his 
ports  to  all  non-English  vessels.  This  astonished  Adams,  and 
of  course  greatly  gratified  him ;  though  he  feared  that  this  policy 
might  not  prove  lasting,  since  the  first  principle  of  Russian  pol 
icy  was,  he  thought,  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  France. 

In  June,  1811,  Adams  sought  to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty 
with  Russia,  and  his  proposal  was  at  first  very  favorably  re 
ceived.  Romaiizoff  promised  to  discuss  the  matter  with  him  in 
a  few  days.  But  he  never  did.  Adams  was  piqued,  and  some 
time  afterward  sought  an  explanation.  He  was  told  that  in 
the  uncertain  and  critical  state  of  affairs,  with  a  war  with 
France  impending,  it  was  useless  to  attempt  any  such  negotia 
tions.  The  fact  was  that  as  Russia,  in  a  war  with  France,  would 
become  again  an  ally  of  Great  Britain,  she  could  not  grant  to 
America  any  commercial  privileges  which  she  would  not  be  will 
ing  to  let  Great  Britain  share.  The  result  was  that  no  treaty 

VOL.  I — 18 


274  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  made,  though  Russia  continued  to  treat  America  with 
marked  friendship. 

The  friendship  of  Russia  was,  however,  of  little  value  to  Amer 
ica  excepting  in  the  matter  of  Baltic  Sea  commerce.  It  had  no 
effect  upon  the  policies  of  Great  Britain  and  France,  and  those 
policies  became  more  and  more  obnoxious  and  oppressive  as  the 
great  conflict  between  those  countries  proceeded  toward  its  cul 
mination.  In  that  struggle,  in  some  respects  the  greatest  that 
the  world  had  seen  for  a  thousand  years,  it  was  not  strange  that 
the  combatants  regarded  lightly  the  rights  and  interests  of  the 
comparatively  weak  young  nation  three  thousand  miles  away. 
Nor,  indeed,  were  they  logically  censurable  for  their  conduct 
toward  us.  We  must  remember  that  in  their  disregard  of  neu 
tral  rights  they  were  simply  maintaining  the  policy  and  practice 
which  had  thitherto  been  consistently  pursued.  It  was  the  pol 
icy  of  the  United  States  which  was  new  and  strange.  We  were, 
in  fact,  asking  Europe  to  reverse  the  principles  and  to  abandon 
the  practices  which  had  prevailed  for  centuries.  Doubtless  we 
were  right  in  doing  so,  for  we  were  leading  the  world  into  a 
better  way  than  the  old  one,  and  the  world  has  now  come  to 
recognize  that  fact.  But  at  that  time  it  was  too  much  to  expect 
that  the  new  doctrines  would  be  at  once  accepted,  especially  by 
nations  which  were  engaged  in  a  life  or  death  struggle.  Russia 
and  Sweden,  not  actually  involved  in  that  conflict,  might  take  our 
side;  especially  since  it  was  to  their  economic  advantage  to  do 
so.  But  for  Great  Britain  and  France  to  do  so  would  have 
been  an  anomaly  such  as  we  could  not  expect  nations  to  perform. 
The  result  was  that,  as  Everett  said  in  after  years,  ''from  the 
breaking  out  of  the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution  to  the  year 
1812,  the  United  States  knew  the  law  of  nations  only  as  the  vic 
tim  of  its  systematic  violation  by  the  great  maritime  powers  of 
Europe." 

As  matters  approached  their  climax,  the  French  government, 
which  had  been  the  more  arbitrary  and  offensive,  appeared  to 
assume  a  conciliatory  attitude;  largely  because  the  destruction 
of  French  power  at  sea  made  that  nation  unable  to  do  us  any 
considerable  harm.  On  the  other  hand,  Great  Britain,  enjoying 
almost  universal  command  of  the  sea,  became  increasingly  ag 
gressive  and  offensive ;  in  some  directions  in  a  quite  inexcusable 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      275 

manner.  It  was  bad  enough  to  oppress  our  commerce  and  to 
impress  our  seamen.  But  it  was  worse  to  foment  sedition  in 
our  domestic  affairs.  Yet  this  was  apparently  done.  The  Brit 
ish  governor  of  Canada,  Sir  James  Craig,  sent  to  Boston  as  a 
secret  agent  an  Irish  adventurer  named  John  Henry,  if  not  to 
intrigue  and  conspire  for  treason  at  least  to  ascertain  and  to 
report  upon  the  sentiment  of  New  England  toward  secession 
from  the  Union  and  reunion  with  England.  The  mercantile 
interests  of  New  England  were  known  to  be  much  dissatisfied 
with  the  nonintercourse  policy,  and  to  be  in  strong  opposition 
to  the  administration,  and  there  was  apparently  a  hope  on  the 
part  of  the  British  governor — possibly  of  the  British  govern 
ment  itself,  though  this  was  not  clear — that  an  insurrection 
could  be  provoked  which  would  result  in  the  secession  of  New 
England  from  the  United  States  and  its  reannexation  to  the 
British  Empire.  Nor  was  this  an  extravagant  hope,  seeing  that 
some  of  the  foremost  New  England  representatives  in  both 
Houses  of  Congress  were  openly  declaring  that  it  was  the  right 
and  would  probably  soon  be  the  duty  of  those  States  thus  to  se 
cede  and  to  dissolve  the  bonds  of  the  Federal  Union.  This  pre 
cious  scoundrel,  Henry,  spent  several  months  in  Boston  and  sent 
to  Craig  numerous  reports,  which  were  forwarded  to  the  British 
government  in  London.  The  fact  that  these  reports  were  re 
ceived  there,  without  rebuke  or  repudiation,  indicated  that  that 
government  was  at  least  in  a  receptive  mood,  and  that  if  it  had 
not  authorized  this  intrigue  it  was  not  unwilling  to  reap  the 
fruits  of  it.  However,  when  Henry  demanded  payment  for  his 
services  as  a  political  spy,  to  the  amount  of  more  than  $150,000, 
the  British  government  refused  it  and  bade  him  go  about  his  busi 
ness.  His  efforts  to  blackmail  Great  Britain  proving  ineffectual, 
he  determined  to  swindle  America.  He  therefore  came  hither 
with  a  French  adventurer  who  called  himself  Count  Crillon,  and 
who  was  in  fact  one  of  Napoleon's  political  spies;  and  the  two, 
acting  under  the  patronage  of  Serruier,  the  French  minister  at 
Washington,  actually  persuaded  Madison  and  Monroe  to  pay 
them  $50,000  for  a  mass  of  their  papers.  It  may  be  added  that 
Crillon  speedily  swindled  Henry  out  of  the  entire  booty.  Madi 
son  sent  the  purchased  rubbish  to  Congress,  with  a  message  de 
claring  that  it  convicted  Great  Britain  of  seeking  to  incite  dis- 


276  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

affection  and  foment  sedition  and  secession  in  New  England, 
with  a  view  of  destroying  the  United  States  and  reannexing  a 
part  of  it  to  the  British  Empire.  It  was  soon  perceived  that  the 
papers  were  not  nearly  so  serious  or  important  as  that.  Never 
theless,  much  harm  was  done  in  the  embittering  of  the  public 
mind  against  Great  Britain.  It  was,  of  course,  a  flagrant  offense 
for  a  British  agent,  official  or  semiofficial,  to  visit  this  country 
on  any  such  errand,  and  the  revelation  of  his  intrigues  created  a 
natural  and  justifiable  storm  of  indignation  in  this  country. 
The  British  government  also  sought  to  interfere  in  our  policy  in 
West  Florida.  The  United  States  was  intent  upon  taking  and 
keeping  possession  of  that  region,  on  the  theory  that  it  was  in 
cluded  in  the  Louisiana  purchase;  and  it  actually  and  perma 
nently  seized  it  in  1810.  Whether  our  contention  was  right  or 
wrong  was  regarded  as  a  question  between  us  and  Spain,  with 
France  incidentally  concerned.  Great  Britain  was  held  to  have 
no  business  to  meddle  in  it.  But  she  did  so,  partly  because  it 
was  then  her  policy  to  champion  Spain,  and  partly  because  she 
expected  herself  to  become  the  owner  of  all  the  Floridas. 

Another  grave  charge — and  an  inexcusable  offense,  if  it  was 
true — was  the  British  incitement  of  Indian  hostilities  in  the 
Northwest.  The  policy  of  our  Government  was  to  secure  exten 
sive  grants  of  land  from  the  Indian  tribes  in  Indiana  and  else 
where,  for  opening  to  agricultural  settlement.  Unhappily,  then 
as  since,  our  Government  was  not  particularly  scrupulous  in  its 
dealings  with  the  Indians.  It  was  quite  ready  to  swindle  them, 
and  Jefferson  himself  regarded  it  as  fitting  to  inveigle  them  into 
debt,  under  pressure  of  which  they  would  sell  their  lands  at  al 
most  any  price  that  was  offered.  The  famous  Indian  chief  Te- 
cumseh,  and  his  brother,  the  "Prophet,"  headed  an  organization 
against  such  spoliation  of  their  tribes.  They  resisted  the  de 
bauching  of  Indians  with  whisky,  which  was  then  as  since  a 
favorite  device  of  the  white  men  on  the  frontier,  and  they  organ 
ized  a  large  community  of  Indians  of  various  tribes  as  agricul 
turists,  to  improve  the  land  instead  of  alienating  it  or  using  it 
merely  as  a  hunting  ground.  In  this  laudable  and  noble  en 
deavor,  unfortunately,  the  Indians  fell  prey  to  British  traders, 
who  supplied  them  with  arms  and  ammunition,  and  incited  them 
to  violent  resistance  to  the  American  government.  An  Amer- 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      277 

lean  army  was  sent  to  the  scene,  and  hostilities  occurred.  The 
attack  was  made  by  the  Indians,  though  they  were  obviously  un 
prepared  for  it  and  it  was  contrary  to  the  policy  of  Tecumseh. 
The  Americans  narrowly  escaped  a  serious  disaster,  and  pres 
ently  withdrew  from  that  region.  Blame  for  the  occurrence  was 
laid  upon  the  British  for  the  reason  that  it  was  certain  that  they 
had  provided  the  Indians  with  arms  and  had  incited  them  to 
violence.  There  has  never  been  any  proof,  however,  that  the 
British  government,  or  the  British  governor  of  Canada,  or  any 
one  else  in  authority,  was  in  any  way  responsible  for  these 
wrongs.  The  British  minister  and  the  Governor  of  Upper  Can 
ada  made  the  most  positive  denials  of  responsibility,  the  latter 
declaring  that  he  had  exerted  all  his  influence  to  restrain  the 
Indians  from  hostility ;  and  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  that 
they  spoke  the  truth.  The  incitement  of  the  Indians  to  warfare, 
and  the  supplying  of  arms  and  ammunition  to  them,  were  the 
acts  of  individual  British  traders,  intent  on  sordid  gain.  But 
the  belief  prevailed  in  this  country  that  the  British  government 
itself  was  behind  the  work,  and  that  belief  naturally  intensified 
popular  wrath  against  Great  Britain. 

These,  then,  were  the  counts  in  America's  indictment  of  Great 
Britain:  The  orders  in  council,  which  were  oppressive  to  Amer-  / 
ican  commerce  and  a  violation  of  neutral  rights ;  the  impressment 
of  American  seamen  for  service  on  British  vessels;  the  incite 
ment  of  Indian  hostilities  in  the  Northwest;  and  unwarranted 
meddling  in  American  affairs  in  New  England  and  in  West 
Florida.  Had  England  been  well  served  by  her  diplomatic  rep 
resentatives  in  this  country,  the  problem  might  have  been  solved 
peacefully,  for  Madison  was  supremely  intent  upon  avoiding 
war.  But  it  had  been  badly  served  by  Merry  and  Jackson,  and 
Foster,  in  his  negotiations  with  Monroe,  was  handicapped  by  ill- 
advised  instructions,  and  the  situation  was  further  complicated 
by  the  duplicity  of  France.  Foster  was  authorized  to  make  and 
did  make  the  fullest  possible  reparation  for  the  Leopard-Chesa 
peake  affair.  But  that  was  of  comparatively  little  importance 
at  this  time.  Americans  were  much  more  interested  in  the  gen 
eral  question  of  impressment,  in  the  blockades,  neutral  rights, 
and  the  orders  in  council,  and  on  all  these  matters  Foster  was 
compelled  to  maintain  an  unyielding  attitude.  He  threatened 


278  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

retaliation  against  American  commerce  if  the  Nonintercourse  Act 
were  not  abandoned,  and  in  fulfilment  of  that  threat  a  million 
dollars '  worth  of  American  shipping  was  actually  seized  and  con 
demned.  If  this  policy  was  harsh  and  ill-conceived,  the  attitude 
of  our  Government  was  certainly  illogical.  It  demanded  that  the 
British  orders  in  council  should  be  withdrawn  on  the  ground  that 
the  French  decrees  had  been  abrogated.  Yet  it  knew,  as  every 
body  knew,  that  the  French  decrees  were  still  being  enforced 
whenever  and  wherever  possible.  Monroe  would  in  one  breath 
assure  the  British  minister  that  the  decrees  had  been  completely 
repealed  by  France,  and  in  the  next  he  would  complain  to  the 
French  minister  that  they  had  not  been  repealed ! 

All  this  was  the  more  unfortunate  because  there  was  rising  in 
Great  Britain  itself  a  strong  demand  for  an  adjustment  of  the 
differences  with  this  country.  Nonintercourse  with  America  was 
having  a  disastrous  effect  upon  British  industries  and  commerce, 
and  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  upon  the  Government  for  a 
change  of  policy  which  would  give  relief  from  conditions  which 
were  fast  becoming  intolerable. 

France,  meanwhile,  was  unrelenting  toward  Great  Britain  and 
was  no  less  resolute  against  all  who  would  not  side  with  her 
against  that  power.  English  commerce  with  the  Continent,  Na 
poleon  declared,  must  be  abolished.  Even  the  Baltic  ports  must 
be  closed.  American  commerce  would  be  permitted,  provided  it 
submitted  to  the  requirements  of  the  decrees,  which  were  the 
"fundamental  laws"  of  the  British  Empire.  But  there  a  new 
complication  arose.  British  shippers  began  displaying  Ameri 
can  flags  upon  their  vessels,  in  order  to  enjoy  immunity  from 
seizure  by  the  French.  Of  course,  all  such  were  seized  whenever 
they  were  detected,  and  the  French  began  seizing  American  ships 
too,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  suspected  of  being  British  in 
disguise.  The  demand  was  made  that  America  should  prevent 
this  misuse  of  her  flag  by  the  British,  under  penalty  of  being 
held  to  sanction  it  and  of  being  thus  regarded  as  an  ally  of 
Great  Britain.  Practically  the  United  States  was  required  to 
go  to  war  with  Great  Britain  in  order  to  prevent  France  from 
being  deceived  by  a  false  use  of  the  American  flag ;  or  else  France 
would  disregard  our  neutrality  and  treat  us  as  an  ally  of  her 
enemy. 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      279 

When  the  American  Congress  met  in  the  fall  of  1811,  a  cli 
max  was  obviously  at  hand.  The  House  of  Representatives  was 
composed  largely  of  new  men,  under  the  leadership  of  Henry 
Clay  and  John  C.  Calhoun,  both  young  and  aggressive  men,  in 
clined  toward  war.  They  rightly  held  that  the  United  States  as 
a  sovereign  power  was  entitled  to  the  respectful  treatment  which 
other  powers  received ;  but  they  were  impatient  and  undiplomatic 
in  the  means  by  which  they  sought  to  vindicate  that  title.  The 
President  in  his  message  reported  the  grievances  which  the 
United  States  was  suffering.  The  reply  of  Congress  was  to  pre 
pare  for  war.  By  dint  of  a  coalition  with  the  Federalists  who 
were  opposed  to  the  administration,  resolutions  were  adopted 
providing  for  the  enlistment  of  25,000  men  in  the  regular  army, 
for  the  arming  of  the  navy,  and  for  the  levying  of  direct  taxes  in 
case  of  war.  The  British  minister,  Foster,  although  cognizant 
of  this  action,  underrated  its  signficance.  He  persisted  in  re 
porting  to  his  Government  that  there  was  little  danger  of  war; 
and  indeed  from  one  point  of  view  war  seemed  improbable,  for 
the  United  States  had  no  army  worth  considering,  its  navy  was 
unfinished  and  lacking  equipment,  and  the  Treasury  was  empty. 
These  circumstances,  however,  were  not  the  slightest  deterrent 
to  the  war  party.  Their  idea  was  to  begin  war,  trusting  blindly 
to  the  "manifest  destiny"  of  America  to  provide  soldiers,  ships, 
and  funds.  Madison  himself,  down  to  this  time  the  most  peace 
ful  of  men,  became  so  hot  for  war  that  he  declared  that  he  would 
hurl  the  flag  of  the  country  into  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  confi 
dently  trusting  to  the  American  people  to  follow  it  and  to  rescue 
it.  The  British  minister  here  was  blind  and  deaf  to  these  things, 
and  he  kept  his  Government  at  home  in  similar  ignorance.  In 
April,  1812,  that  Government  in  one  letter  practically  agreed  to 
accept  and  adopt  the  American  contention  that  a  blockade  to  be 
legal  must  be  effective;  which  has  since  become  a  part  of  the 
international  law  of  the  world.  But  unfortunately  in  another 
letter  it  declared  that  the  obnoxious  orders  in  council  would  not 
be  withdrawn  until  France  absolutely  and  unconditionally  with 
drew  her  Berlin  and  Milan  decrees.  To  do  otherwise,  it  added, 
would  be  "utterly  subversive  of  the  most  important  and  indis 
putable  maritime  rights  of  the  British  Empire." 

That  ended  it.     The  American  government  regarded  this  as  a 


280  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

definite  refusal  of  its  demands.  On  June  1,  1812,  Madison  sent 
a  special  message  to  Congress,  repeating  his  complaints  against 
England  and  asking  for  a  declaration  of  war.  Had  there  been 
telegraphic  communication  across  the  Atlantic  the  peace  might 
still  have  been  preserved,  for  on  June  16  the  British  government 
announced  that  the  orders  in  council  would  be  immediately  with 
drawn.  But  that  was  not  known  at  Washington,  and  two  days 
later,  on  June  18,  the  act  of  Congress  declaring  war  was  signed 
by  the  President.  Neither,  of  course,  was  that  known  in  Lon 
don,  and  five  days  later  the  decree  repealing  the  orders  in  council 
was  signed  and  issued. 

We  need  not  here  follow  in  detail  the  course  of  the  war  which 
ensued ;  a  war  which  was  loudly  proclaimed  in  this  country  to  be 
' '  a  war  of  the  people  of  America  against  the  Government  of  Eng 
land.  ' '  In  fact,  it  was  undoubtedly  clamored  for  by  a  large  part 
of  the  American  people,  and  it  was  probably  not  desired  by  the 
people  of  Great  Britain.  But  Lord  Liverpool  was  much  nearer 
right  when  he  declared,  in  the  middle  of  the  conflict,  that  "the 
war  on  the  part  of  America  had  been  a  war  of  passion,  of  party 
spirit,  and  not  a  war  of  policy,  of  interest,  or  of  necessity." 
It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  the  act  of  declaring  war  no  reasons 
for  such  action  were  given.  There  was  just  a  single  sentence, 
"that  war  be  and  the  same  is  hereby  declared  to  exist"  between 
the  two  countries.  The  vote  in  the  House  was  79  to  49,  and  in 
the  Senate  19  to  13.  Other  war  measures  quickly  followed, 
authorizing  privateering  and  reprisals,  and  forbidding  commerce 
with  the  enemy.  As  for  the  war  itself,  it  was  what  might  have 
been  expected  after  such  a  welter  of  cross-purposes  and  precipi 
tate  folly.  We  had  an  army  of  fewer  than  7,000  men,  with  few 
high  officers  who  were  both  loyal  and  competent.  The  chief 
commander  was  a  colonel  of  militia  far  past  the  age  for  efficient 
service;  the  most  active  and  influential  was  a  traitor  who  had 
repeatedly  betrayed  his  country  for  foreign  gold.  The  natural 
result  was  that  on  the  land,  with  two  or  three  grateful  exceptions, 
our  operations  were  one  of  the  most  humiliating  and  disgraceful 
of  travesties  upon  warfare.  On  the  water  we  fared  better. 
Small  as  our  navy  was  in  contrast  to  the  power  which  had  won 
the  mastery  of  the  Seven  Seas  at  Trafalgar,  it  contained  a  few 
good  ships,  and  officers  and  men  not  unworthy  of  the  race  that 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      281 

had  produced  in  the  same  generation  a  Nelson  and  a  Dundonald. 
The  hardy  and  expert  fishermen  of  New  England  and  the  crews 
of  our  merchant  ships  provided  more  competent  recruits  for  the 
navy  than  there  were  ships  to  carry  them.  Moreover,  American 
ingenuity  had  devised  a  system  of  sights  upon  naval  artillery 
which  made  the  aim  of  American  guns  at  sea  far  more  accurate 
and  effective  than  that  of  those  on  British  ships.  For  these  rea 
sons  our  navy  was  able  to  win  a  number  of  exceedingly  brilliant 
engagements,  on  the  sea  and  on  the  Great  Lakes,  for  which  no 
praise  could  be  too  high.  It  was  indeed  a  naval  victory,  the 
battle  of  Lake  Erie,  that  redeemed  us  from  utter  disaster  in  our 
land  campaigns  and  that  probably  saved  us  from  invasion  and 
sequestration  of  much  of  the  Northwest  Territory.  In  view,  too, 
of  the  traditional  opposition  of  America  to  privateering,  it  is 
interesting  to  recall  that  such  operations  were  among  the  most 
efficient  adjuncts  to  our  naval  war.  American  privateers  prob 
ably  did  more  than  the  navy  itself  to  bring  the  British  govern 
ment  and  nation  to  a  disposition  to  make  peace. 

So  gross  was  the  failure  of  our  land  campaign  that  its  prime 
object  has,  for  very  shame,  been  consigned  to  forgetfulness.  Yet 
it  is  well,  for  the  truth  of  history,  to  recall  it.  The  lust  of  land 
possessed  us.  The  dream  of  conquering  and  annexing  Canada 
deluded  us.  "The  conquest  of  Canada,"  cried  Clay,  "is  in  your 
power.  The  militia  of  Kentucky  alone  are  competent  to  place 
Montreal  and  Upper  Canada  at  your  feet."  To  this  rabid  rodo 
montade,  Jefferson,  speaking  from  the  retirement  of  Monticello, 
added:  "The  acquisition  of  Canada  this  year  as  far  as  the 
neighborhood  of  Quebec  will  be  a  mere  matter  of  marching,  and 
will  give  us  experience  for  the  attack  on  Halifax  the  next,  and 
the  final  expulsion  of  England  from  the  American  continent." 
No  wonder  that  Randolph  of  Roanoke  with  bitterness  declared : 
"Agrarian  cupidity,  not  maritime  right,  urges  the  war."  Thus 
beginning  with  flamboyant  visions  of  universal  conquest,  America 
soon  had  the  indelible  mortification  of  seeing  its  national  capital 
abandoned  to  the  foe  with  scarcely  the  firing  of  a  single  shot  in 
its  defense.  We  must  condemn  the  British  burning  of  Washing 
ton  as  an  inexcusable  piece  of  vandalism,  violating  the  principles 
of  civilized  warfare ;  but  we  cannot  excuse  the  purblind  folly  and 
the  foul  poltroonery  which  made  it  possible.  The  names  of 


282  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Miller,  and  Scott,  and  Brown,  and  Jackson,  on  land ;  and  of  Law 
rence,  Perry,  Isaac  Hull,  McDonough,  Rodgers,  Porter,  Bain- 
bridge,  Decatur,  and  others  at  sea,  won  immortal  and  richly 
merited  renown ;  while  those  of  William  Hull,  Winder,  Dearborn, 
Smyth,  Van  Rensselaer,  and  above  all  the  unspeakable  Wilkinson, 
incurred  imperishable  contempt. 

One  of  the  salient  features  of  the  war  was  the  arising  of  dis 
affection  little  short  of  treason  at  home.  We  have  already  seen 
that  in  New  England  there  was  strong  opposition  to  the  war 
and  to  the  whole  policy  of  the  administration,  and  that  talk  of 
secession  was  openly  heard,  from  the  lips  of  some  of  the  fore 
most  public  men.  We  must  glance  at  this  for  a  moment,  as  a 
baleful  illustration  of  the  reflex  influence  of  foreign  relations 
upon  domestic  affairs,  as  also  of  the  extent  to  which  domestic 
partizanship  intruded  itself  into  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  na 
tion.  The  opposition  to  the  war  and  the  suggestions  of  secession 
increased  as  the  war  proceeded  and  as  defeat  and  disgrace  fell 
too  often  upon  the  American  arms.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war 
the  great  jurist,  Joseph  Story,  expressed  the  conviction  that  the 
leading  Federalists  meditated  a  severance  of  the  Union,  and  that 
they  would  make  a  public  avowal  of  this  design  as  soon  as  they 
thought  that  public  opinion  would  support  them  in  it.  Two 
years  later,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  war,  Pickering,  who  had 
been  secretary  of  state,  wrote  to  Gouverneur  Morris  that  "the 
separation  of  the  northern  section  of  the  States  would  be  ulti 
mately  advantageous/'  Finally  in  1814  there  met  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  a  convention  composed  of  delegates  officially  ap 
pointed  by  the  legislatures  of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and 
Rhode  Island,  and  by  local  authorities  in  New  Hampshire  and 
Vermont,  which  adopted  a  series  of  resolutions  calling  for  amend 
ment  and  interpretation  of  the  Federal  Constitution  in  accord 
ance  with  the  view  of  the  anti-war  party ;  in  default  of  which  it 
was  recommended  that  another  convention  be  called  "with  such 
powers  and  instructions  as  the  exigencies  of  a  crisis  so  moment 
ous  may  require."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  purpose 
of  the  convention  was  revolutionary,  looking  straight  toward 
secession.  John  Quincy  Adams  declared  it  to  be  unconstitu 
tional,  treasonable,  abnormal,  hideous,  and  wicked — in  which  he 
was  guilty  of  extravagant  exaggeration.  The  directors  of  that 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      283 

convention  shrewdly  copied  their  resolutions  in  large  part  ver 
batim  from  the  Virginia  resolutions  of  1798  which  Madison  him 
self  had  written,  and  .they  recalled  the  fact  that  Jefferson  had 
spoken  in  favor  of  division  of  the  Union  and  had  expressed  a 
hope  that  twenty  years  would  not  be  permitted  to  pass  without  a 
rebellion.  For  the  Republicans  or  Democrats  to  chide  the  Hart 
ford  Federalists  for  disloyalty  was  therefore  merely  for  the  pot 
to  call  the  kettle  black.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  when  a  re 
port  of  the  proceedings  of  the  convention,  which  had  been  held 
in  secret,  was  finally  disclosed,  it  was  seen  that  there  had  been 
no  talk  of  treason.  Nevertheless,  the  convention  was  generally 
regarded  with  severe  disapproval,  and  its  members  lost  and 
never  regained  political  standing.  A  committee  of  the  conven 
tion  was  sent  to  Washington  to  urge  its  report  upon  Congress, 
but  before  it  could  accomplish  its  mission  the  triumphant  battle 
of  New  Orleans  was  fought  and  news  came  of  the  treaty  of 
Ghent ;  at  which  the  committee  dispersed  and  went  home  and  the 
episode  ended  in  a  mixture  of  ridicule  and  reproach. 

Interest  in  the  war  and  a  desire  for  the  restoration  of  peace 
were  not  confined,  however,  to  the  actual  belligerents.  The  re 
lations  with  Russia  which  John  Quincy  Adams  had  established 
led  the  Government  of  that  country  to  observe  closely  the  prog 
ress  of  American  affairs.  Moreover,  only  four  days  after 
America's  declaration  of  war  against  Great  Britain,  France  de 
clared  war  against  Russia,  and  Napoleon  began  preparing  for  his 
march  to  Moscow,  which  was  effected  that  summer.  This  of 
course  made  Russia  and  Great  Britain  allies,  and  the  Russian 
emperor  therefore  regarded  the  war  between  his  friend,  America, 
and  his  ally,  Great  Britain,  with  much  regret.  His  feelings  were 
indeed  more  than  those  of  regret.  He  had  a  lively  fear  that 
America  might  ally  herself  with  France  against  the  common 
enemy  of  both,  Great  Britain.  For  this  fear  there  never  was 
any  ground.  Monroe  wrote  to  Adams  on  July  1,  1812,  that  if 
Russia  became  involved  in  war  with  France,  and  therefore  an 
ally  of  Great  Britain,  there  was  no  reason  why  the  United  States 
should  not  continue  on  the  best  of  terms  with  her  even  while 
warring  against  her  ally.  Before  Adams  received  this  despatch, 
however,  he  was  called  upon  by  Romanzoff,  who  brought  to  him 
a  message  from  the  emperor,  expressing  much  regret  at  the  war 


284  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

between  America  and  England,  and  offering  tentative  sugges 
tions  of  Russian  mediation  between  the  two.  Adams  had  re 
ceived  no  instructions  from  Washington  to  guide  him  in  the  mat 
ter,  but  on  his  own  authority  he  replied  that  he  felt  sure  that  the 
United  States  would  welcome  such  action,  provided  that  Great 
Britain  would  also  accept  it.  Romanzoff  replied  that  he  had  al 
ready  made  the  suggestion  to  the  British  ambassador,  who  had 
forwarded  it  to  his  Government.  A  few  weeks  later  Adams  re 
ceived  Monroe's  despatch  about  maintaining  friendly  relations 
with  Russia  despite  all  other  complications,  and  communicated 
a  part  of  its  contents  to  Romanzoff,  who  was  of  course  much 
pleased  and,  with  Adams's  not  altogether  judicious  consent,  con 
veyed  to  the  British  government  the  assurance  that  America 
would  not  ally  herself  with  France.  Adams  then  inquired  what 
answer  if  any  the  British  government  had  made  to  the  mediation 
proposal,  and  was  told  that  it  had  neither  accepted  nor  rejected 
it,  but  had  expressed  the  belief  that  America  would  not  accept 
it  and  the  opinion  that  the  time  for  such  action  had  not  yet  ar 
rived.  Nevertheless  it  had  sent  out  Admiral  Sir  John  B.  War 
ren  with  authority  to  negotiate. 

In  January,  1813,  Daschkoff,  the  Russian  minister  at  Wash 
ington,  apparently  without  official  instructions,  suggested  to 
Madison  that  the  czar  would  be  glad  to  mediate;  but  the  Presi 
dent  was  irresponsive  and  unsympathetic.  A  month  later  Dasch 
koff  renewed  the  suggestion,  under  orders  from  St.  Petersburg, 
and  at  the  same  time  Madison  received  from  Adams  despatches 
containing  the  Russian  proposals  which  had  been  made  to  him. 
Madison  wished  to  avoid  any  clash  with  Congress  over  the  mat 
ter,  and  so  waited  until  that  body  had  adjourned,  in  March, 
when  he  told  Daschkoff  that  the  offer  would  be  accepted.  There 
upon,  on  March  8,  Daschkoff  reported  to  Monroe  that  he  had 
just  received  orders  from  Russia  to  make  a  formal  tender  of  the 
emperor's  mediation,  and  three  days  later  Monroe  replied,  stat 
ing  that  the  President  formally  accepted  the  offer.  Madison  and 
Monroe  apparently  did  not  wait  to  learn  the  intentions  of  Great 
Britain,  but  precipitately  assumed  that  that  country  also  had 
accepted  the  offer.  Next  they  consulted  with  Jefferson,  and  on 
his  advice  appointed  a  commission  of  three  members  to  conduct 
the  negotiations.  One,  of  course,  was  Adams.  The  second  was 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GEEAT  BRITAIN      285 

James  A.  Bayard  of  Delaware,  a  Federalist  who  was  chosen  in 
order  to  give  the  commission  a  nonpartizan  air.  It  was  in 
tended  to  select  a  Western  man  for  the  third  member  in  order 
to  give  that  part  of  the  country  representation;  but  Gallatin, 
who  felt  that  his  services  as  secretary  of  the  treasury  were  no 
longer  profitable,  asked  for  the  appointment  and  received  it.  By 
this  time  it  was  known  that  the  decision  of  Great  Britain  had 
not  yet  been  announced,  but  Monroe  was  confident  that  it  would 
be  favorable  to  the  proposed  mediation.  He  instructed  the  com 
missioners  to  explain  fully  to  the  Russian  government  the  claims 
of  the  United  States  for  neutral  rights  and  the  grounds  upon 
which  they  were  based.  They  were  to  make  no  treaty  which  did 
not  explicitly  renounce  for  Great  Britain  the  rights  of  search 
and  impressment.  In  addition,  they  were  to  seek  a  treaty  of 
amity  and  commerce  with  Russia,  on  the  basis  of  reciprocity  in 
the  rights  of  the  "most  favored  nation." 

There  was  then  soon  made  a  most  extraordinary  revelation  of 
deception  which  had  been  practised  by  the  Russian  government 
or  some  of  its  officers,  which  had  the  result  of  causing  great  em 
barrassment  and  of  defeating  the  negotiations  for  peace.  Ro- 
manzoff  had  assured  Adams,  and  also  Gallatin,  on  the  latter 's 
arrival  at  St.  Petersburg,  that  the  offer  of  mediation  had  been 
made  to  the  British  government  at  exactly  the  same  time  and  in 
exactly  the  same  manner  as  to  the  United  States;  as  of  course 
it  should  have  been.  But  now  it  appeared  that  this  had  not 
been  done.  The  offer  had  not  been  made  at  all  to  the  British 
government,  and  the  first  intimation  which  it  had  of  the  project 
of  mediation  was  conveyed  in  the  report  of  Admiral  Warren, 
commander  of  the  British  fleet  in  the  Chesapeake,  that  he  had 
granted  a  passport  to  the  American  vessel  which  conveyed  Galla 
tin  and  Bayard  from  Washington  to  St.  Petersburg.  The  fact 
that  Russia  had  thus  failed  to  extend  the  offer  of  mediation  to 
Great  Britain,  or  even  to  notify  her  of  it,  was  in  itself  sufficient 
to  cause  British  rejection  of  the  whole  scheme.  In  addition  the 
question  of  maritime  rights,  which  was  fundamental  to  the  war, 
was  considered  to  be  of  so  vital  importance  to  Great  Britain  that 
under  no  circumstances  could  she  submit  it  to  the  arbitration  of 
a  third  party.  The  cabinet  therefore  unanimously  resolved  not 
to  accept  the  proposed  mediation,  and  the  Russian  government 


286  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  promptly  informed  to  that  effect.  This  information  was 
repeated  to  the  three  American  commissioners,  who  thus  found 
that  they  had  nothing  to  do.  They  did,  indeed,  seek  the  nego 
tiation  of  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce  with  Russia,  but  were 
told  that  in  the  then  existing  state  of  European  affairs  the  em 
peror  did  not  think  the  time  propitious  for  such  negotiations. 
The  emperor  also  declared  that  since  Great  Britain  had  declined 
his  offer  of  mediation  he  would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with 
the  matter.  Romanzoff,  however,  made  several  further  efforts 
to  have  the  offer  renewed,  without  result.  He  was  indeed  him 
self  being  at  this  time  discredited  and  forced  out  of  office,  hav 
ing  been  replaced  in  the  czar's  favor  and  confidence  by  Count 
Nesselrode. 

At  this  juncture,  happily,  it  became  known  that  the  British 
government  had  expressed  its  willingness  to  enter  into  direct 
peace  negotiations  with  the  United  States,  without  Russian  or 
other  mediation,  the  negotiations  to  be  conducted  either  at  Goth 
enburg,  in  Sweden,  or  in  London.  This  information  was  with 
held  from  the  Americans  by  Romanzoff  as  long  as  possible,  and 
various  amazing  misrepresentations  were  made  by  him  both  to 
them  and  to  the  British  ambassador,  justifying  the  declaration 
which  the  latter  made  to  Adams,  that  the  Russian  chancellor  had 
been  cheating  both  parties.  When  the  possibility  of  direct  ne 
gotiations  became  known,  however,  the  situation  was  materially 
cleared  up.  The  British  offer  to  that  effect  was  not  received  at 
Washington  until  January  3,  1814;  though  Lord  Castlereagh 's 
note  conveying  it  was  dated  November  4,  preceding.  It  was 
promptly  accepted  by  Monroe,  two  days  later,  and  the  whole 
correspondence  in  the  case  was  laid  before  Congress.  The  com 
mission  was  increased  to  five  in  number,  by  the  addition  of  Henry 
Clay  and  Jonathan  Russell;  and  new  instructions  were  issued 
to  it,  to  suit  the  new  circumstances,  authorizing  it  to  proceed  to 
London  at  its  discretion;  which  it  did. 

Gallatin  and  Bayard  were  the  first  of  the  American  commis 
sioners  to  come  into  touch  with  the  British  government,  but  they 
arrived  in  London  at  an  inopportune  moment.  They  reached 
that  capital  on  April  9,  1814.  Two  days  later  Napoleon  abdi 
cated  the  imperial  throne  of  France,  and  the  whole  aspect  of 
European  affairs  was  transformed.  Great  Britain  particularly 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      287 

was  exultant.  Her  navy,  long  mistress  of  the  European  seas, 
was  freed  from  duty  there  and  could  be  sent  in  a  body  to  block 
ade  and  scourge  the  American  coast.  Her  veteran  army,  re 
leased  from  continental  wars,  could  be  transferred  to  Canada 
for  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  New  England;  an  achievement 
which  the  cabinet  confidently  anticipated.  There  was  a  wide 
spread  inclination  to  continue  the  war  until  America  was 
crushed.  It  was  seriously  purposed  to  challenge  our  title  to 
Louisiana,  to  compel  us  to  relinquish  West  Florida,  to  exclude 
Americans  from  the  fisheries  of  the  Nova  Scotia  and  Newfound 
land  coasts  and  from  the  navigation  of  the  Niagara  and  St.  Law 
rence  rivers,  and  to  take  the  northern  parts  of  Indiana  and  Illi 
nois  and  all  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  from  us,  to  be  erected 
into  an  Indian  territory  under  British  protection  and  suzerainty. 
The  British  government  might  have  persisted  in  this  course, 
backed  with  the  military  power  which  had  crushed  Napoleon,  but 
for  two  considerations.  One  was  that  it  had  already  committed 
itself  to  negotiations  for  peace;  and  the  other,  that  the  general 
sentiment  of  its  allies  on  the  continent  of  Europe  was  opposed  to 
such  measures. 

Gallatin  and  Bayard  were,  however,  alarmed  and  depressed, 
and  wrote  to  Monroe  that  they  could  expect  nothing  better  than 
to  make  a  treaty  which  would  put  things  back  just  where  they 
were  before  the  war,  leaving  the  questions  of  the  blockade,  the 
searching  of  vessels,  and  the  impressment  of  seamen  as  unsettled 
as  ever.  At  Gallatin 's  request  our  minister  at  Paris  tried  to 
make  an  appeal  to  the  Russian  emperor,  but  was  denied  any  in 
terview  with  him  or  with  his  minister,  Nesselrode.  Appeal  was 
then  made  to  Lafayette,  who  was  known  to  be  our  friend  and 
who  was  supposed  to  have  much  influence  with  the  czar.  Lafay 
ette  took  up  the  eause  with  generous  zeal,  discussed  it  with  the 
czar  in  a  long  interview  at  the  house  of  Mme.  de  Stael,  and  se 
cured  from  him  a  promise  to  do  what  he  could  for  us  when  he 
reached  London.  Lafayette  also  got  a  promise  of  aid  from 
Humboldt,  the  Prussian  minister  at  Paris,  who  had  visited  the 
United  States  on  his  way  home  from  his  scientific  researches  in 
Mexico  and  South  America.  When  the  czar  went  over  to  Lon 
don,  however,  he  told  Gallatin  that  he  could  do  nothing  for  him. 
He  had  already  made  three  fruitless  efforts  in  our  behalf,  and 


288  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  convinced  that  Great  Britain  would  not  be  moved  by  the 
intervention  of  any  third  power.  The  fact  was  that  the  czar 
had  never  had  any  other  than  a  purely  selfish  motive  in  his 
offer  of  mediation  and  his  profession  of  friendship  for  the 
United  States ;  and  now  that  it  was  no  longer  to  his  interest  to 
befriend  this  country,  he  reversed  his  policy  and  became  as  un 
sympathetic  as  he  had  at  first  been  effusive.  He  was  also  already 
beginning  to  meditate  upon  the  distinctly  and  aggressively  anti- 
American  policy  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  This  outcome  of  the 
Russian  mediation  proposals  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  the 
United  States,  and  the  evident  duplicity  of  the  Russian  chancel 
lor,  if  not  of  the  czar  himself,  created  a  most  unfavorable  im 
pression.  But  it  was  considered  to  be  good  policy  to  say  noth 
ing  about  it  and  to  proceed  with  negotiations  with  Great  Brit 
ain  as  though  nothing  had  ever  been  said  or  done  by  Russia  on 
the  subject.  Gallatin  urged,  meanwhile,  upon  Clay,  who  was 
at  Gothenberg,  that  the  negotiations  should  not  be  conducted 
there,  but  should  be  transferred  to  some  place  more  accessible 
to  the  continental  powers  upon  whose  friendly  offices  and  influ 
ence  America  must  rely.  London  itself  would  be  preferable  to 
so  out-of-the-way  a  spot  as  Gothenberg.  Clay  hesitated,  being 
quite  unwilling  to  go  to  London  and  fearing  that  removal  from 
Gothenberg  would  offend  the  Swedish  government.  Finally  it 
was  agreed  that  the  negotiations  should  be  conducted  on  neutral 
soil  at  Ghent,  and  Gallatin  set  out  thither  at  the  beginning  of 
July,  1814,  in  an  almost  hopeless  frame  of  mind.  He  knew,  and 
had  warned  Monroe,  that  the  British  government  was  preparing 
to  send  20,000  veteran  troops  to  America  for  the  capture  of 
Washington,  New  York,  and  other  coast  cities,  and  he  had  no 
hope  of  any  aid  whatever  from  any  other  country. 

The  commissioners  met  at  Ghent  on  August  8,  and  between 
the  two  sides  there  was  a  striking  contrast.  The  five  Americans 
were  among  the  ablest  and  most  resolute  men  this  country  then 
possessed.  John  Quincy  Adams,  the  chairman,  was  one  of  the 
most  masterful  statesmen  of  his  time  in  any  country  of  the 
world,  profoundly  versed  in  all  the  issues  of  both  European  and 
American  diplomacy  and  without  a  superior  in  the  world  in  men 
tal  keenness  and  controversial  skill.  Gallatin  was  a  man  of 
exceptional  ability  and  of  a  fine  diplomatic  temperament,  well 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      289 

fitted  to  counteract  the  somewhat  harsh  and  arrogant  manner 
of  Adams.  Clay  was  a  fine  representative  of  the  younger  ele 
ment  of  the  West,  Russell  was  an  equally  good  representative 
of  the  mercantile  interests  of  New  England,  and  Bayard  united 
in  himself  the  principles  of  both  the  great  political  parties  of 
America.  The  British  commissioners  were  only  three  in  num 
ber.  One  was  Lord  Gambier,  a  naval  officer  of  discreditable  re 
pute  ;  Henry  Goulbourn,  a  youthful  tyro  in  diplomacy ;  and  Wil 
liam  Adams,  an  academic  jurist.  The  three  had  apparently  been 
selected  because  they  were  mediocrities  and  could  therefore  be 
trusted  to  take  no  initiative  but  mechanically  to  reflect  the  mind 
of  the  British  ministry. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  conferences  the  British  commis 
sioners  demanded,  as  prerequisite  to  further  negotiations,  the 
surrender  of  the  Northwest  Territories  as  an  Indian  domain. 
The  Americans  replied  with  a  flat  refusal  to  consider  the  propo 
sition  at  all.  A  deadlock  was  thus  caused,  which  came  peril 
ously  near  to  putting  an  end  to  the  negotiations  before  they  were 
fairly  begun.  It  is  a  matter  of  uncertainty  whether  the  British 
government  seriously  expected  this  extravagant  demand  to  be 
granted.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  intention  was  to  create  a 
deadlock,  abandon  the  negotiations,  and  continue  the  war.  In 
deed,  the  war  was  actually  being  continued.  Chippewa  and 
Lundy's  Lane  were  fought  while  the  commissioners  were  pro 
ceeding  to  Ghent,  and  the  British  raid  upon  Washington  and 
Baltimore  and  the  battle  of  Lake  Champlain  followed  hard  upon 
their  first  meetings.  On  the  other  hand,  the  unconcealed  though 
pitifully  futile  attempt  of  the  Americans  to  conquer  and  an 
nex  Canada  warranted  the  British  in  seeking  a  counter-conquest 
of  United  States  territory.  It  is  not  improbable,  either,  that  a 
design  was  cherished  of  making  the  establishment  of  a  British 
Indian  State  on  the  Upper  Mississippi  an  entering  wedge  to  the 
British  acquisition  of  Louisiana  itself  and  control  of  the  river 
all  the  way  to  the  gulf.  Florida  would  then  have  been  taken 
in  return  for  the  British  expulsion  of  Napoleon  from  Spain,  and 
the  United  States,  confined  to  little  more  than  the  area  of  the 
original  thirteen  colonies,  would  be  hemmed  in  at  north,  west, 
and  south  by  a  British  domain. 

The  negotiations  were  thus  suspended  and  the  American  com- 

VOL.  I — 19 


290  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

missioners  prepared  to  leave  Ghent  and  return  home  to  rally  a 
united  American  nation  to  a  desperate  struggle  for  life  itself. 
Ten  days  later,  however,  Lord  Castlereagh  passed  through  Ghent 
on  his  way  to  the  Congress  of  Vienna  which  was  to  reorganize 
the  continent  of  Europe,  and  he  gave  fresh  instructions  for  the 
reopening  of  negotiations.  He  renewed  the  demand  for  relin- 
quishment  of  territory,  which  would  give  the  western  three  of 
the  Great  Lakes  to  Great  Britain,  and  also  for  cession  of  the 
northern  and  eastern  part  of  Maine  so  as  to  give  Canada  a  direct 
line  from  Quebec  to  Halifax;  Great  Britain  was  to  have  full 
rights  of  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  and  America  was  to 
have  no  naval  vessels  on  any  of  the  Great  Lakes.  Adams  re 
quired  these  propositions  to  be  submitted  in  writing,  and  he  and 
Gallatin  and  their  colleagues  framed  a  singularly  resolute  and 
forceful  reply,  the  gist  of  which  was  that  they  would  not  so 
much  as  consider,  or  refer  to  their  home  Government,  the  pro 
posals  respecting  the  relinquishment  of  territory  and  the  ex 
clusion  of  our  flag  from  the  lakes.  The  negotiations  were  there 
fore  again  abandoned.  Adams  packed  his  trunks  for  a  return 
to  St.  Petersburg,  Clay  planned  to  go  to  Paris,  Russell  prepared 
to  begin  his  new  duties  as  minister  to  Sweden,  and  Gallatin  and 
Bayard  turned  their  faces  toward  America.  On  August  31  a 
messenger  was  sent  to  Washington,  reporting  the  failure  of  the 
peace  negotiations.  The  news  was  circulated  here  when  Ameri 
cans  were  still  exulting  over  the  victories  at  Lundy's  Lane  and 
on  Lake  Champlain,  and  when  they  were  exasperated  over  the 
burning  of  Washington  and  the  attack  on  Baltimore ;  and  it  was 
received  with  a  grim  determination  to  prosecute  the  war  if  nec 
essary  to  the  bitter  end. 

When  Castlereagh  learned  that  the  negotiations  were  again 
broken  off  he  was  much  concerned,  and  doubtless  realized  the 
error  of  appointing  commissioners  who  could  exericse  no  dis 
cretion  and  take  no  initiative.  He  gave  his  commissioners  a 
wigging,  and  issued  new  instructions,  in  which  he  admitted  that 
the  questions  of  the  Indian  territory,  the  Canadian  boundary, 
and  the  control  of  the  lakes  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  real  is 
sues  of  war,  and  that  these  demands  had  been  made  not  as  a  sine 
qua  non  but  merely  as  a  diplomatic  offset  to  the  aggressive  de 
signs  of  the  United  States  against  Canada  and  in  West  Florida. 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      291 

These  demands  were  therefore  to  be  dropped,  and  the  British 
government  would  be  satisfied  with  a  guarantee  of  amnesty  to 
the  Indians  who  had  engaged  in  the  war  against  the  United 
States.  "With  this  triumph  for  the  Americans  the  negotiations 
were  resumed.  The  next  question  to  be  considered  was  that 
of  the  disposition  of  the  lands  occupied  by  the  belligerents  dur 
ing  the  war.  The  Americans  contended  that  the  old  boundaries, 
which  existed  before  the  war,  should  be  restored  at  all  points. 
The  British  proposed,  on  the  other  hand,  that  new  lines  should 
be  drawn  so  as  to  give  each  country  the  territory  which  was 
actually  in  its  possession  at  the  time  of  the  making  of  the  treaty. 
To  this  latter  proposal  the  Americans  replied  with  a  positive 
refusal,  and  they  added  that  they  would  proceed  no  further 
with  the  negotiations  excepting  on  the  basis  of  the  territorial 
status  quo  ante  ~bellum.  In  this  attitude  they  were  strongly  en 
couraged  by  the  news  which  reached  Ghent  on  that  very  day 
of  the  victory  on  Lake  Champlain,  the  repulse  of  the  British  at 
Baltimore,  and  the  retreat  of  Prevost's  army. 

For  a  moment  the  British  were  inclined  to  abandon  negotia 
tions  and  enlarge  their  efforts  in  the  war,  and  it  was  actually 
suggested  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  should  be  sent  to  America 
either  to  negotiate  peace  or  to  command  the  army.  But  Well 
ington  replied  that  if  he  came  hither  he  could  do  nothing  in  war 
fare  without  the  control  of  the  lakes,  and  he  saw  no  way  in 
which  that  was  to  be  secured ;  and  in  respect  to  peace-making  he 
added  that  in  his  opinion  the  Americans  were  right  in  demand 
ing  the  restoration  of  the  old  boundaries.  Moreover,  affairs  at 
Vienna  were  not  proceeding  favorably  to  the  British,  talk  of 
Russian  intervention  was  renewed,  and  the  taxpayers  of  the 
United  Kingdom  were  grumbling  at  the  prospect  of  more  war 
bills.  The  British  government  therefore  reluctantly  conceded 
the  American  demand  and  requested  the  American  commission 
ers  to  draft  a  definitive  treaty  of  peace.  In  this  work  the  Amer 
icans  had  a  reasonably  free  hand.  It  is  true  that  their  original 
instructions  made  the  complete  abandonment  of  impressments  by 
Great  Britain  essential.  If  that  was  not  granted,  they  were  to 
quit  negotiations  and  return  home.  Later  they  were  told  by 
Monroe  that  that  point  was  important  but  not  indispensable. 
Finally  they  were  told  that  they  might  waive  that  point  alto- 


292  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

gether  if  they  could  not  otherwise  make  a  treaty  for  ending  the 
war. 

But  even  with  this  liberty  of  action  the  five  American  com 
missioners  were  much  embarrassed  by  their  own  strong  dif 
ferences  of  opinion.  Adams  and  Russell,  New  Englanders, 
wanted  to  insist  upon  the  fishery  rights,  and  cared  less  about 
the  Mississippi.  Clay  and  Bayard,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted 
the  British  to  be  excluded  from  navigating  the  Mississippi,  while 
they  were  little  interested  in  the  fisheries.  The  question  arose, 
as  a  matter  of  international  law,  whether  the  treaty  of  peace 
of  1783  was  still  in  force,  or  whether  it  had,  like  other  treaties, 
been  automatically  voided  by  the  declaration  of  war.  Clay  in 
clined  to  the  latter  view,  and  held  that  the  British  rights  in  the 
Mississippi  had  thus  been  abolished.  Adams  argued  with  much 
force  that  the  treaty  of  1783  was  of  so  extraordinary  a  charac 
ter  that  it  had  survived  the  incidence  of  war  and  was  still  in 
force,  and  that  therefore  the  American  rights  in  the  fisheries 
and  the  British  rights  in  the  Mississippi  were  still  intact.  In 
this  Adams  was  probably  right,  but  Clay  could  not  be  convinced, 
and  would  listen  to  no  treaty-making  which  opened  or  left  open 
the  Mississippi  to  the  British.  For  a  time  this  disagreement 
threatened  the  defeat  of  the  negotiations,  but  in  the  end  the  tact 
and  humor  of  Gallatin  composed  the  controversy,  and  both 
Adams  and  Clay  agreed  to  the  making  of  a  treaty  which  should 
make  no  reference  to  either  of  those  disputed  points.  A  draft  of 
such  a  treaty  was  submitted  to  the  British  on  November  10.  At 
about  that  time  General  Jackson  was  seizing  Pensacola  in  return 
for  the  British  use  of  that  Spanish  Floridan  city  as  their  base  of 
operations  against  Southern  Georgia. 

The  British  reply  was  to  throw  a  firebrand  among  the  Amer 
ican  commissioners.  They  returned  the  treaty  on  November  25 
with  a  number  of  changes,  chief  among  which  was  the  insertion 
of  a  specific  grant  to  them  of  the  right  to  navigate  the  Missis 
sippi,  while  no  allusion  was  made  to  the  fisheries.  That  of  course 
set  Adams  and  Clay  at  their  former  dispute,  hammer  and  tongs,, 
and  again  Gallatin 's  diplomacy  was  taxed  to  restore  peace  and 
unity  between  his  colleagues.  A  proposal  to  grant  the  naviga 
tion  of  the  Mississippi  in  return  for  a  grant  of  the  fisheries,  which 
would  have  restored  the  conditions  which  prevailed  before  the 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      293 

war,  was  rejected  by  the  British.  The  Americans  then  offered 
to  proceed  with  negotiations  under  a  tacit  reservation  of  all  their 
rights,  but  refused  to  have  a  clause  to  that  effect  inserted  in  the 
treaty  lest  it  should  be  interpreted  in  an  undesirable  manner. 

In  the  end,  all  reference  to  these  questions  was  omitted,  and  the 
amazing  anomaly  was  presented,  on  December  24,  of  the  mak 
ing  and  signing  of  a  treaty  of  peace  which  did  not  settle 
or  so  much  as  refer  in  any  way  to  even  a  single  one  of  the 
issues  over  which  the  war  had  ostensibly  been  declared  and 
fought.  Search,  impressment,  blockade,  maritime  rights  of  neu 
trals,  indemnities,  and  the  other  matters  which  had  loomed 
so  large  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  and  for  years  before,  were 
as  completely  ignored  as  though  they  had  never  existed.  The 
treaty  realized  the  title  of  the  last  chapter  of  "Rasselas": 
"The  conclusion,  in  which  nothing  is  concluded."  It  simply 
provided  for  peace,  for  the  restoration  of  all  conquests  to  the 
ante  bellum  status,  for  the  appointment  of  commissioners  to  de 
fine  disputed  boundaries,  for  the  ending  of  Indian  wars,  and  for 
the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade.  The  last-named  provision  was 
not,  unfortunately,  made  really  effective  for  many  years  there 
after,  owing  to  the  fact  that  its  enforcement  would  have  involved 
the  exercise  of  that  right  of  search  which  both  countries  were 
now  desirous  of  dropping  into  desuetude.  Gallatin  had  tried  to 
get  inserted  a  provision  forbidding  the  employment  of  savages 
in  warfare,  but  this  did  not  appear  in  the  final  draft  of  the 
treaty. 

The  chief  credit  for  the  making  of  this  treaty  is  due  to  Galla 
tin,  though  his  colleagues  must  all  share  in  it,  and  even  the 
sometimes  acrimonious  differences  of  Adams  and  Clay,  on  the 
whole,  contributed  to  rather  than  obstructed  the  gaining  of  the 
end.  Gallatin  described  the  treaty  to  Monroe  as  being  "as 
favorable  as  could  be  expected  under  existing  circumstances,  so 
far  as  they  were  known  to  us/'  and  this  estimate  of  it  was 
probably  just.  Before  the  news  of  the  signing  of  it  could  reach 
America,  the  battle  of  New  Orleans  was  fought  and  the  British 
there  suffered  their  one  really  stinging  land  defeat  of  the  whole 
war.  Indeed,  the  news  of  the  peace  was  not  known  in  America 
until  near  the  middle  of  February,  1815,  when  it  was  received 
by  all  parties  with  a  mingling  of  satisfaction  and  regret.  There 


294  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

was  occasion  for  the  administration  party  to  feel  humiliated, 
because  of  the  failure  of  the  high  and  resounding  boasts  with 
which  they  had  begun  the  war.  Their  designs  for  the  conquest 
of  Canada  had  ended  in  a  hopeless  fiasco,  and  most  of  the  land 
compaigns  had  been  little  else  than  disgraceful.  Nevertheless 
Madison  reported  to  Congress  that  the  treaty  ended  "with  pe 
culiar  felicity  a  campaign  signalized  by  the  most  brilliant  suc 
cesses."  The  treaty  was  submitted  to  the  Senate  on  February 
15  and  was  ratified  two  days  later.  There  was  an  instant  re 
sponse  in  business  and  finance,  stocks  in  New  York  and  Phila 
delphia  rising  from  ten  to  eighteen  points  within  a  week,  and 
the  whole  country  hastening  into  a  general  revival  of  industrial 
and  commercial  prosperity.  Nor  was  there  less  gratification  in 
Great  Britain,  especially  since  a  few  days  after  the  ratification 
of  the  treaty  Napoleon  escaped  from  Elba  and  resumed  his  wars. 

It  is  of  interest  to  recall  some  authoritative  British  expressions 
concerning  the  proceedings.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  publicly 
testified  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  the  American  commissioners 
in  making  the  treaty  "had  shown  a  most  astonishing  superiority 
over  the  British"  during  the  whole  of  the  negotiations.  This 
superiority  was  undoubted  and  was  very  great,  but  it  was 
scarcely  astonishing,  seeing  that  the  British  government  had  de 
liberately  and  purposely  selected  three  men  of  not  more  than 
third-rate  ability.  A  few  years  later  the  British  lord  chief  jus 
tice  expressed  the  judicial  opinion  that  the  orders  in  council 
were  not  only  grievously  unjust  to  neutrals  but  also,  according 
to  the  general  belief,  were  contrary  to  British  law  and  the  law 
of  nations.  As  to  our  military  achievements,  while  most  of  those 
on  land  were  contemptible,  the  few  exceptions  to  that  rule  cre 
ated  a  profound  impression  upon  the  whole  world ;  particularly 
that  post  helium  battle  in  which  'Jackson's  rude  frontiersmen 
routed  the  disciplined  veterans  of  Wellington 's  Peninsular  War ; 
and  that  impression  was  strengthened  by  the  brilliant  achieve 
ments  of  the  few  ships  which  our  navy  then  contained;  so  that 
"The  London  Times"  was  moved  to  say  of  the  Americans  in 
1817:  "Their  first  war  with  England  made  them  independent; 
their  second  made  them  formidable." 

The  issues  left  unsettled  by  the  treaty  were,  however,  numer 
ous  and  formidable,  and  some  of  them  were  urgent.  Among 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      295 

them  were  the  fisheries,  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  West  . 
Indian  commerce,  the  northeast  and  northwest  boundaries,  and 
indemnity  for  slaves  carried  off  by  the  British  during  the  war. 
Adams,  Gallatin,  and  Clay  soon  began  negotiations  which  lasted 
for  two  months  and  resulted  in  the  making  of  a  commercial  con 
vention,  on  July  3,  1815,  which  was  to  last  for  four  years,  a 
term  which  was  extended  to  ten  years.  Under  this  convention 
many  of  the  American  demands  were  ignored  or  denied.  But  it 
was  agreed  that  there  should  be  reciprocal  freedom  of  commerce 
between  the  United  States  and  all  the  European  possessions  of 
Great  Britain,  and  that  all  the  discriminating  duties  and  vexa 
tious  restrictions  of  past  years  should  be  abolished.  The  Brit 
ish  government  refused,  however,  to  extend  these  conditions  to 
commerce  with  its  West  Indian  and  Canadian  possessions,  and 
the  East  Indian  trade  was  to  be  open  to  Americans  for  only 
American  products  or  direct  importation  of  East  Indian  goods 
to  America,  and  vessels  in  that  trade  were  forbidden  to  call  at 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  St.  Helena,  or  any  other  British  pos 
sessions  on  the  way.  The  consistent  and  resolute  purpose  of 
Great  Britain  was  to  retain  for  herself  a  monopoly  of  trade 
among  the  various  parts  of  her  empire.  The  result  was  that  the 
bulk  of  the  West  Indian  trade,  comprising  American  exports  of 
lumber,  cattle,  flour,  and  other  food  products,  remained  in  Brit 
ish  hands.  The  fisheries  question  was  not  touched  in  the  con 
vention,  and  the  British  authorities  began  to  act  upon  the  as 
sumption  that  all  American  rights  had  lapsed,  and  therefore  to 
seize  all  American  fishermen  found  operating  along  the  coasts 
without  special  license,  and  also  to  warn  them  not  to  approach 
within  sixty  miles  of  the  coast — a  perfectly  indefensible  arroga- 
tion  of  sovereignty  over  the  high  seas  which  a  few  years  later 
led  to  some  sharp  correspondence  and  to  vigorous  negotiations. 
But  this  and  the  other  issues  were  postponed  for  action  by  the 
next  administration. 

Despite  the  unfortunate  circumstances  attendant  upon  the 
Russian  offer  of  mediation,  the  Russian  government  expressed 
itself  as  much  pleased  with  the  making  of  the  treaty  of  Ghent, 
and  its  relations  with  the  United  States  remained  most  friendly. 
In  1815  it  offered  to  secure,  through  its  minister  at  Constantino 
ple,  the  good  offices  of  the  Sultan  of  Turkey  in  the  adjustment 


296  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  relations  between  America  and  Algiers  on  a  more  satisfac 
tory  basis.  Daschkoff,  at  Washington,  intimated  to  Monroe  that 
he  had  been  authorized  to  negotiate  a  reciprocity  trade  treaty 
with  this  country,  and  preparations  to  that  end  were  begun, 
when  a  most  unpleasant  incident  occurred  which  not  only 
abruptly  ended  them  but  also  strained  the  relations  between  the 
two  countries.  This  was  the  arrest,  in  November,  1815,  of  Kos 
loff,  the  Russian  consul-general  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  atrocious 
charge  of  committing  rape  upon  a  child  of  tender  years,  the 
penalty  for  which  under  American  law  was  death.  Kosloff  was 
committed  to  prison  and  was  there  confined  over  night.  The 
next  day  he  obtained  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  as  a  result 
was  permitted  to  go  on  bail,  to  await  trial  at  the  next  term  of 
court.  Daschkoff  at  once  protested  to  Monroe  that  the  arrest 
was  a  breach  of  international  law  and  of  consular  immunity, 
which  was  likely  to  lead  to  unpleasant  complications  between  the 
two  nations,  and  two  days  later  he  issued  a  circular  letter  to  all 
foreign  ministers  in  this  country  to  the  same  effect.  No  formal 
reply  was  made  to  Daschkoff 's  letter,  but  he  was  privately  as 
sured  that  the  United  States  district-attorney  would  see  to  it 
that  Kosloff 's  rights  under  the  law  of  nations  were  respected. 
Indictment  by  a  grand  jury  followed,  and  the  case  came  before 
the  trial  court.  There  Kosloff 's  counsel  moved  for  dismissal  on 
two  grounds:  First,  that  the  law  of  nations  conferred  upon 
consuls  immunity  from  criminal  prosecution;  and  second,  that 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  vested  the  federal  courts 
with  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  all  cases  affecting  consuls.  The 
former  ground  was  obviously  untenable.  Consular  immunity 
cannot  be  interpreted  as  a  charter  for  felony.  The  second  was, 
however,  perfectly  valid,  and  on  it  the  case  was  dismissed.  Kos 
loff  was  still  under  the  imputation  of  crime,  however,  and  Dasch 
koff  demanded  that  he  should  be  taken  before  a  federal  court 
so  that  he  could  prove  his  innocence.  This  was  obviously  a  flat 
contradiction  of  the  former  contention  of  consular  immunity. 
It  was  denied  by  the  Government,  on  the  ground  that  rape  was 
an  offense  at  common  law  over  which  the  federal  courts  did  not 
have  jurisdiction,  and  that  therefore  there  could  be  no  trial  for 
it  before  such  a  tribunal.  It  was  added  that  if  Kosloff  wanted 
a  vindication  he  could  seek  it  by  prosecuting  the  person  on  whose 


ALBERT  GALLATIX 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      297 

complaint  he  had  been  arrested ;  but  this  he  declined  to  do.  He 
might  also  have  had  a  vindication  in  the  state  court,  had  he  not 
set  up  the  plea  of  its  lack  of  jurisdiction.  At  this  Daschkoff 
addressed  the  secretary  of  state,  demanding  redress  for  an  out 
rage  against  international  law,  for  which,  he  insisted,  the  Execu 
tive  of  the  United  States  was  responsible.  His  tone  was  so  in 
temperate  that  the  President  and  secretary  of  state  declined  to 
answer  his  note  or  to  discuss  the  matter  with  him.  Instead,  they 
sent  his  note  and  a  full  statement  of  the  American  side  of  the 
case  to  Nesselrode  at  St.  Petersburg.  This  communication  was 
first  handed  to  Daschkoff,  for  him  to  transmit  to  his  chief.  But 
he  refused  to  do  so  and. returned  it,  saying  that  he  considered 
it  improper  for  him  to  transmit  it.  Monroe  then  announced  his 
intention  of  sending  it  to  Nesselrode  by  special  messenger.  A 
few  weeks  later,  on  October  31,  1816,  Daschkoff  severed  diplo 
matic  relations  with  the  United  States.  He  told  Monroe  that 
this  was  done  at  the  command  of  the  emperor  who,  on  learning 
of  the  outrage  upon  his  consul-general,  had  refused  to  receive 
Levett  Harris,  the  American  charge  d'affaires,  and  had  directed 
Daschkoff  to  withdraw  from  a  country  where  the  laws  of  nations 
were  disregarded  and  where  the  representative  of  a  great  power 
was  not  properly  treated. 

This  extreme  action  was  a  great  and  unwelcome  surprise  to 
the  American  government,  which  had  not  anticipated  anything 
of  the  sort,  and  which  had  meantime,  in  February,  1816,  ap 
pointed  William  Pinckney,  one  of  the  most  accomplished  men 
of  the  time,  to  be  minister  to  Russia.  It  had  also  instructed 
Harris,  at  St.  Petersburg,  to  seek  the  removal  of  the  Russian 
consul  at  Boston  for  a  number  of  offenses,  including  that  of  con 
cealing  and  protecting  from  confiscation  some  British  goods 
which  had  been  captured  as  prizes  in  the  late  war.  Nesselrode 
agreed  to  the  withdrawal  of  this  consul,  and  then  intimated  that 
if  the  secretary  of  state  would  write  to  him,  or  if  the  President 
would  write  to  the  emperor,  expressing  regret  for  the  treatment 
of  Kosloff,  that  incident  would  be  ended  and  new  and  more 
acceptable  agents  of  the  Russian  government  would  be  sent  to 
the  United  States.  There  followed  some  weeks  of  vigorous  con 
troversy  between  Harris  and  Count  Capo  d'Istria,  Nesselrode 's 
colleague  in  the  Russian  ministry.  The  latter  had  by  this  time 


298  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

been  convinced  that  Kosloff  and  Daschkoff  had  acted  badly  and 
that  the  emperor  had  acted  hastily  in  banishing  Harris  from 
court,  but  he  sought  some  settlement  which  would  not  have  even 
the  appearance  of  any  humiliation  of  the  emperor.  He  also 
strove  to  stand  out  for  the  principle  of  consular  immunity  to  an 
extreme  degree.  Harris,  with  fine  tact  and  resolution,  main 
tained  that  the  action  of  the  American  government  had  been 
perfectly  correct  in  all  respects,  and  that  the  form  and  degree 
of  consular  immunity  which  had  been  demanded  for  Kosloff  was 
unknown  to  American  jurisprudence  and  could  not  be  consid 
ered  as  admissible.  His  last  word  was  that  the  American  gov 
ernment  had  acted  with  remarkable  patience  and  deference  to 
the  emperor,  and  that  it  could  and  would  concede  nothing  more. 

At  this  the  Russian  government  yielded  unconditionally,  and 
the  incident  ended  in  a  complete  victory  for  the  United  States. 
Harris  was  restored  to  his  place  at  the  Russian  court,  and  Pinck- 
ney  on  his  arrival  was  received  with  all  possible  distinction, 
while  Daschkoff,  in  consequence  of  full  revelations  of  his  violent 
and  unreasonable  course,  was  recalled.  It  was  also  agreed  that 
thereafter  the  Russian  minister  to  the  United  States  should  be 
required  to  live  at  Washington,  instead  of  at  Philadelphia  as 
Daschkoff  had  persisted  in  doing.  The  reception  of  Pinckney 
was,  indeed,  unprecedented.  He  had  an  audience  with  the  czar 
on  New  Year's  day,  and  at  the  court  ball  that  evening  he  was 
invited  within  the  imperial  circle,  where  the  empress  talked  with 
him  for  nearly  half  an  hour.  That  was  the  first  time  that  an 
envoy  of  less  than  ambassadorial  rank  was  ever  admitted  to  that 
circle.  In  other  ways  the  Russian  sovereign  also  demonstrated 
uncommon  solicitude  for  the  favor  of  the  United  States.  It  was 
even  intimated  to  Harris,  before  Pinckney 's  arrival,  that  the 
emperor  was  desirous  of  securing  the  adherence  of  this  country 
to  the  compact  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  The  explanation  of  this 
course  was  simple.  Russia  was  at  that  time  finding  herself  and 
her  policies  opposed  by  Great  Britain  at  every  turn,  and  the 
emperor  aimed  at  overcoming  that  hostile  power  by  favoring  the 
only  nation  which  promised  to  become  a  successful  maritime 
rival  of  it.  He  hoped,  indeed,  to  secure  a  practical  alliance  with 
the  United  States  against  Great  Britain. 

Pinckney  was  received  at  the  beginning  of  the  year.    In  May 


THE  SECOND  WAR  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN      299 

following  Baron  Tuyll  was  appointed  to  succeed  the  egregious 
Daschkoff  as  Russian  minister  to  the  United  States.  Tuyll,  like 
more  than  one  other  eminent  Russian,  was  a  Hollander  by  birth 
and  training,  and  was  a  diplomat  of  much  ability.  On  learning 
of  his  appointment,  and  thus  the  complete  restoration  of  diplo 
matic  relations  between  the  two  countries,  Pinckney  broached 
the  subject  of  a  commercial  treaty,  which  he  had  been  authorized 
to  negotiate.  Nesselrode  told  him  that  the  emperor  did  not 
believe  in  such  treaties,  considering  them  unnecessary  and  actu 
ally  harmful;  and  the  subject  was  thereupon  dropped.  Pinck 
ney  also  took  up  the  matter  of  the  boundaries  of  the  Russian 
possessions  in  America,  and  while  he  accomplished  nothing  in 
the  way  of  negotiation  he  learned  enough  of  Russian  designs  to 
enable  him  to  warn  the  Washington  government  of  them.  But 
his  health  failed,  and  early  in  1818  he  returned  home,  leaving 
the  settlement  of  the  Alaska  boundary  and  the  disposition  of  the 
United  States  toward  Russia's  "Holy  Alliance"  to  be  deter 
mined  by  others. 

During  Madison's  administration  William  Shaler  was  main 
tained  as  our  consul-general  at  Algiers,  but  in  1815  and  1816 
Commodores  Bainbridge,  Decatur,  and  Chauncey,  on  the  decks 
of  good  fighting  ships,  conducted  our  principal  negotiations  with 
that  country,  and  secured  a  new  treaty  of  peace  and  amity  in 
1816,  under  which  blackmailing  tribute  was  finally  renounced. 
In  1811,  George  W.  Erving  of  Massachusetts  was  sent  as  minis 
ter  to  Denmark.  Following  the  making  of  the  treaty  of  peace 
with  Great  Britain,  John  Quincy  Adams  became  our  minister 
to  that  country,  while  Gallatin  was  accredited  to  France.  Wil 
liam  Eustis  of  Massachusetts  was  sent  to  the  Netherlands;  in 
August,  1814,  relations  with  Spain  were  resumed  by  the  com 
missioning  of  George  W.  Erving  as  minister;  Thomas  Sumter, 
Jr.,  of  South  Carolina  was  sent  as  minister  to  Portugal  in  1809 ; 
and  Jonathan  Russell,  as  already  mentioned,  was  made  minister 
to  Sweden  (including  Norway)  in  1814,  where  he  concluded  a 
treaty  of  amity  and  commerce  in  1816. 


XI 

OPENING  A  NEW  ERA 

ANOTHER  new  era  in  foreign  relations  began  with  the  ad 
ministration  of  Monroe,  in  which  the  most  forceful  Amer 
ican  diplomat  of  his  time,  John  Quincy  Adams,  was  secretary  of 
state.  There  were  waiting  to  be  settled  some  of  the  unfinished 
tasks  of  the  former  administration,  and  first  among  these  was 
the  question  of  the  North  Atlantic  fisheries.  The  British  gov 
ernment  was  impelled  to  assume  a  hostile  attitude  toward  Amer 
ican  fishermen  chiefly  by  the  rancor  of  its  Canadian  subjects, 
among  whom  were  thousands  of  loyalists  and  their  children  who 
had  been  scandalously  illtreated  and  expelled  from  the  United 
States  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution  and  who  still  cherished  a 
bitter  and  by  no  means  unnatural  or  unjustifiable  resentment 
against  this  country.  The  British  contention  was  that  all  Amer 
ican  rights  and  privileges  in  the  fisheries  had  been  based  upon 
the  treaty  of  1783,  that  the  subsequent  War  of  1812  had  auto 
matically  annulled  that  and  all  other  preceding  treaties,  and 
that  therefore  those  rights  and  privileges  were  no  longer  exist 
ent.  The  American  reply,  which  Adams  urged  with  convincing 
force,  was  that  the  treaty  of  1783  in  its  very  nature  was  per 
petual  and  was  not  annulled  by  the  subsequent  war,  but  was  still 
in  force.  It  was  that  treaty  by  virtue  of  which  Great  Britain 
recognized  the  independence  and  sovereignty  of  America,  and 
if  it  had  been  annulled  then  Great  Britain  would  in  the  treaty 
of  Ghent  have  put  herself  in  the  absurd  position  of  negotiating 
with  a  power  whose  independence  and  sovereignty  she  no  longer 
recognized.  Adams  therefore  urged  that  the  fishing  rights  were 
still  unimpaired,  just  as  much  as  independence  itself. 

Richard  Rush,  who  had  been  attorney  general  of  the  United 
States  and  for  a  time  acting  secretary  of  state,  was  appointed 
minister  to  England,  and  Gallatin,  our  minister  to  France,  went 
over  to  London  to  assist  him  in  the  negotiations.  These  envoys 

300 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  301 

were  instructed  to  make,  if  necessary,  some  concessions,  but  not 
to  relinquish  the  general  fishery  rights  and  privileges  of  this 
country.  The  result  was  a  treaty  which  was  signed  at  London 
on  October  20,  1818,  which  confirmed  an  important  part  of  the 
American  rights  but  renounced  others.  Americans  were  to  have 
forever  the  right  to  fish  along  the  northern,  western,  and  south 
ern  coasts  of  Newfoundland  and  the  coast  of  Labrador,  and  to 
land,  and  to  cure  and  to  dry  fish,  on  any  of  the  unsettled  bays 
and  creeks  of  those  coasts.  But  they  relinquished  their  rights 
on  all  the  other  coasts  and  waters  of  British  North  America,  to 
wit,  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia  and  Lower  Canada,  and  the 
eastern  coast  of  Newfoundland;  excepting  that  th^y  still  might 
visit  those  coasts  for  shelter  in  storm,  for  necessary\j*epairs,  and 
for  supplies  of  wood  and  water.  This  arrangement  was  re 
garded  as  quite  satisfactory,  and  was  so,  for  a  time;  mit  event 
ually  grave  disputes  arose  concerning  the  interpretation  of  the 
treaty  and  a  final  settlement  was  not  effected  until  the  beginning 
of  the  twentieth  century. 

Another  question  which  was  dealt  with  in  this  treaty  of  1818 
was  the  northern  boundary  of  the  Louisiana  territory.  That 
territory,  though  repeatedly  transferred  from  one  sovereignty  to 
another,  had  never  been  accurately  defined,  either  at  the  north  or 
at  the  southwest.  The  watershed  between  the  Mississippi  River 
and  its  tributaries,  at  the  south,  and  the  Red  River  of  the  North 
and  its  tributaries,  flowing  north,  was  the  natural  boundary,  but 
it  was  winding  and  unsatisfactory,  and  an  arbitrary,  straight  line 
was  desired.  Even  the  short  stretch  of  boundary  between  Can 
ada  and  our  Northwestern  Territory,  from  the  Great  Lakes  to 
the  Mississippi  River,  was  undefined.  The  treaty  of  1783,  made 
before  that  region  was  surveyed,  described  it  as  running  from 
the  northwestern  extremity  of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods  "on  a  due 
west  course  to  the  River  Mississippi."  But  that  was  impossible, 
since  the  source  of  the  Mississippi  was  found  to  lie  almost  ex 
actly  south  of  that  lake.  Under  the  treaty  of  1818  the  matter 
was  permanently  settled  by  establishing  the  boundary  line  along 
the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  north  latitude,  from  the  Lake  of  the 
Woods  to  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

Beyond  the  mountains  there  was  another  still  more  serious 
boundary  dispute,  involving  the  ownership  of  the  vast  Oregon 


302  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Territory,  extending  from  California  to  Russian  America.  Both 
countries  claimed  it  all.  The  British  based  their  title  upon  Cap 
tain  Cook's  visit  to  that  part  of  the  Pacific  coast  in  1778,  upon 
the  explorations  of  Mackenzie  and  Vancouver  in  1793,  upon  the 
establishment  of  settlements  on  Nootka  Sound  which  were  recog 
nized  by  Spain  in  1790,  and  upon  the  existence  in  that  region  of 
various  posts  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company.  The  United  States 
based  its  claim  upon  the  discovery  and  exploration  of  the  Colum 
bia  River  by  Captain  Gray  in  1792,  upon  the  overland  expedition 
and  exploration  of  Lewis  and  Clarke  in  1803,  and  upon  the 
founding  of  Astoria  by  John  Jacob  Astor  in  1811  and  the  res 
toration  of  that  place  to  the  Americans  at  the  end  of  the  War 
of  1812,  in  accordance  with  the  treaty  of  Ghent.  That  region 
was  so  remote,  however,  and  its  value  so  little  developed,  that  a 
settlement  of  the  question  of  ownership  was  postponed.  The 
treaty  of  1818  provided  merely  that  for  ten  years  thereafter  the 
whole  region  was  to  be  jointly  occupied,  "free  and  open  to  the 
vessels,  citizens,  and  subjects  of  the  two  powers,"  without  preju 
dice  to  the  claims  of  either.  This  arrangement  was  renewed  for 
a  second  period  of  ten  years,  and  a  final  settlement  was  not  made 
until  1846. 

A  third  subject  of  this  treaty  was  that  of  the  claims  of  Amer 
ican  citizens  for  payment  for  slaves  which  had  been  carried  off 
by  the  British  during  the  late  war.  It  was  agreed  that  this 
should  be  referred  for  adjudication  to  some  friendly  power,  and 
accordingly  the  emperor  of  Russia  was  selected  as  umpire,  and 
he  in  1822  decided  that  the  Americans  were  entitled  to  indemnity 
for  whatever  losses  they  could  prove  they  had  suffered.  This 
was  of  much  interest,  as  the  first  such  example  of  arbitration,  or 
adjudication,  in  our  history.  The  facts  were  these:  In  the 
"War  of  1812  the  British  naval  and  land  forces  came  into  posses 
sion  of  many  Negro  slaves,  some  of  whom  came  to  them  volun 
tarily  as  fugitives  and  some  of  whom  were  forcibly  seized.  The 
treaty  of  Ghent  provided  that  "all  territory,  places,  and  pos 
sessions  whatsoever"  which  had  been  taken  by  one  party  from 
the  other,  should  be  restored,  without  destroying  or  carrying 
away  therefrom  any  artillery  or  other  public  property  originally 
captured  there  and  remaining  there  when  the  treaty  was  made, 
"or  any  slaves  or  other  private  property."  The  clause  was 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  303 

drawn  in  a  slipshod  and  indefinite  way,  and  its  meaning  was 
disputed.  The  British  held  that  it  required  the  surrender  of 
only  such  slaves  as  had  originally  been  taken  or  found  in  places 
seized  and  were  still  remaining  there ;  while  those  who  had  been 
removed  from  the  places  where  they  were  taken,  or  who  had 
come  to  British  vessels  from  other  places  not  occupied  by  the 
British,  were  not  to  be  surrendered  or  paid  for.  In  brief,  the 
Negroes  were  to  be  regarded  in  precisely  the  same  category  as 
cannon  or  other  inanimate  property.  The  American  contention 
was  that  slaves  and  other  private  property  stood  in  an  entirely 
different  light  from  public  property.  Thus  the  stipulation  that 
property  was  not  to  be  destroyed  was  obviously  inapplicable  to 
slaves. 

The  matter  was  much  debated,  and  finally  it  was  agreed 
to  submit  "the  true  intent  and  meaning"  of  that  clause  of  the 
treaty  to  "some  friendly  sovereign  or  State,"  whose  decision 
should  be  final  and  conclusive.  The  award  was  made  by  the 
Emperor  of  Russia,  on  April  22,  1822,  and  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  United  States  was  entitled  to  the  restoration  of  or  payment 
for  all  slaves  who  had  been  carried  away  from  the  places  and 
territories  which  the  British  had  seized  and  which  were  to  be 
restored,  but  not  for  any  which  had  been  taken  from  other  places. 
The  emperor  offered  to  act  as  mediator  in  the  further  and  final 
settlement  of  these  claims;  his  offer  was  accepted,  and  on  June 
30,  1822,  a  convention  was  concluded  providing  for  the  appoint 
ment  of  mixed  commissions,  each  consisting  of  one  commissioner 
and  one  arbitrator  appointed  by  each  of  the  two  powers,  with  the 
Russian  minister  as  an  umpire  to  cast  the  deciding  vote  in  case 
of  an  equal  division  of  the  four.  These  commissions  were  to  as 
certain  the  number  of  slaves  and  the  amount  of  other  private 
property  taken  and  the  value  thereof.  The  work  was  not  con 
cluded  until  August  31,  1828,  and  resulted  in  the  payment  by 
the  British  government  of  claims  amounting  in  all  to  $1,204,960. 

An  attempt  was  made  by  the  Americans,  in  negotiating  the 
treaty  of  1818,  to  secure  larger  privileges  in  the  West  India 
trade,  and  to  define  the  northeast  boundary  between  Maine  and 
New  Brunswick,  and  the  British  tried  to  insert  a  clause  ef 
fectively  providing  for  the  regulation  or  suppression  of  the  Af 
rican  slave  trade;  but  all  these  failed.  The  invention  of  the 


304  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

cotton  gin  had  made  the  slave  system  of  immense  importance  to 
the  Southern  States,  and  there  was  a  strong  disinclination  to 
interfere  with  the  trade  in  human  chattels.  The  chief  objection 
by  Americans  to  the  British  proposal  on  this  subject  was,  how 
ever,  based  upon  the  fact  that  its  adoption  would  assert  and  con 
firm  that  right  of  search  of  vessels  at  sea  against  which  this 
country  had  so  long  and  so  strenuously  protested,  and  the  exer 
cise  of  which  the  British  had  so  grossly  abused.  It  is  interesting 
to  recall  that  Adams  himself,  who  later  for  many  years  was  the 
chief  adversary  of  the  whole  slave  system,  at  this  time  opposed 
the  British  request  for  its  suppression.  "It  is,"  he  said,  "a 
bare-faced  and  impudent  attempt  of  the  British  to  obtain,  in 
time  of  peace,  that  right  of  searching  and  seizing  ships  of  other 
nations  which  they  so  outrageously  abused  during  the  war." 
And  so,  at  his  direction,  the  American  minister  in  London  re 
fused  to  negotiate  any  treaty  provision  for  the  suppression  of 
the  slave  trade.  To  what  extent  Adams's  biting  criticism  was 
warranted — to  what  extent  the  British  really  wanted  to  suppress 
slavery,  or  merely  wanted  to  legalize  the  right  of  search — is  not 
confidently  to  be  determined.  But  the  United  States  was  justi 
fiable  in  refusing  to  accede  to  the  British  proposal ;  and  it  showed, 
moreover,  that  in  doing  so  it  had  not  been  moved  by  love  of  the 
slave  trade  when,  in  the  next  two  years,  it  ordered  the  seizure 
of  all  vessels  engaged  in  that  trade  and  proscribed  them  as  guilty 
of  piracy. 

While  thus  some  disputes  with  Great  Britain  were  settled  and 
others  postponed  under  a  modus  vivendi  or  otherwise  for  future 
settlement,  relations  with  Spain  assumed  a  more  strenuous  char 
acter.  The  objects  of  contention  were  the  Floridas,  or  by  this 
time  East  Florida  alone,  since  West  Florida  had  been  forcibly 
disposed  of  in  Madison's  time.  The  United  States  had  from 
the  beginning  contended  that  at  least  half  of  West  Florida,  to 
wit,  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  East  Pearl  River,  now  forming 
a  part  of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  was  included  in  the  Louisiana 
Purchase ;  and  in  1810,  in  anticipation  of  the  admission  of  Lou 
isiana  to  the  Union  two  years  later,  it  took  possession  of  that 
region  and  never  again  relinquished  it.  By  that  time  the  terri 
tories  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama  were  rapidly  reaching  a  con 
dition  which  would  warrant  their  admission  as  States,  and  it 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  305 

was  regarded  as  essential  that  they  should  have  frontages  upon 
the  gulf.  This  need  was  the  greater  in  the  case  of  Alabama, 
since  Mississippi  would  have  a  commercial  outlet  by  way  of  the 
great  river  whose  name  it  bore,  while  Alabama  would  be  entirely 
inland  and  would  be  debarred  from  direct  access  to  any  deep 
water.  In  addition,  it  was  felt  that  it  would  not  be  propitious 
to  have  those  States  bordered  at  the  south  by  alien  and  poten 
tially  hostile  territory.  For  these  reasons,  and  with  a  firm  reli 
ance  upon  the  right  of  superior  might,  in  1813  the  United  States 
seized  that  remaining  portion  of  West  Florida  lying  between  the 
Pearl  River  and  the  Perdido  River,  which  now  forms  the  south 
ern  extremities  of  the  States  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama.  Span 
ish  protests  and  British  representations  were  in  vain.  The  law 
that  "they  shall  take  who  have  the  power,  and  they  shall  keep 
who  can, ' '  was  in  effective  force. 

There  was  thus  left  to  Spain  only  the  territory  of  East  Florida, 
identical  in  extent  with  our  present  State  of  Florida,  and  already 
American  aggressiveness,  or  prudence,  or  both,  had  marked  it 
to  share  the  fate  of  the  smaller  western  districts.  As  early  as 
1803,  in  the  midst  of  the  Louisiana  business,  Jefferson  had  de 
clared  that  as  soon  as  Spain  became  engaged  in  another  war, 
Florida  or  the  Floridas  would  become  ours.  His  attention  was 
chiefly  fixed  upon  West  Florida,  though  he  doubtless  had  East 
Florida  in  mind  when  he  spoke  of  the  whole  Gulf  Stream  as 
belonging  to  the  United  States.  Indeed,  the  acquisition  of  Lou 
isiana  made  the  acquisition  of  Florida  inevitable,  since  it  was  in 
tolerable  that  our  commerce  between  the  Mississippi  River  and 
the  Atlantic  should  have  to  skirt  for  hundreds  of  miles  the  shores 
of  an  alien  country,  and  should  have  to  pass  through  a  strait 
both  shores  of  which  were  held  by  a  foreign,  always  antagonistic, 
and  sometimes  hostile  power.  Florida,  moreover,  abutted  directly 
upon  the  entire  southern  border  of  Georgia,  which  was  not  pleas 
ant  and  would  not  have  been  pleasant  under  any  circumstances. 
It  was  far  worse  than  unpleasant ;  it  was  gravely  detrimental  to 
our  peace,  security,  and  general  welfare,  in  the  circumstances 
which  then  existed  and  which  were  steadily  becoming  worse. 
For  Florida  was  the  home  of  Indian  tribes  which  frequently 
made  raids  across  the  border  into  Georgia.  It  was  the  resort  of 
outlaw  bands,  which  committed  all  sorts  of  depredations  upon 

VOL.  1—20 


306  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Georgia.  It  was  the  refuge  of  runaway  slaves  and  of  absconding 
criminals.  These  things  made  it  a  serious  nuisance,  which  Spain 
either  would  not  or  could  not  abate.  There  was,  finally,  always 
present  the  danger  that  Spain  would  transfer  Florida  to  some 
other  power,  or  that  it  would  be  taken  from  her  by  some  other. 
Spain  herself,  in  her  decadence,  could  not  imperil  us,  but  for 
Great  Britain  or  France  to  own  Florida  and  to  use  it  as  a  base 
of  operations  against  us,  would  be  a  very  different  thing. 

It  was  with  this  latter  contingency  in  view  that  the  first  spe 
cific  action  toward  annexing  Florida  was  taken ;  at  a  time  in  the 
later  Napoleonic  wars,  when  Spain  was  almost  at  the  mercy  of 
any  despoiler.  Congress*,  in  secret  session  on  January  15,  1811, 
adopted  the  following  joint  resolution : 

''Taking  into  view  the  peculiar  situation  of  Spain,  and  of 
her  American  provinces ;  and  considering  the  influence  which  the 
destiny  of  the  territory  adjoining  the  southern  border  of  the 
United  States  may  have  upon  their  security,  tranquillity,  and 
commerce, 

"Be  it  Resolved:  That  the  United  States,  under  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  existing  crisis,  cannot  without  serious  in 
quietude  see  any  part  of  the  said  territory  pass  into  the  hands 
of  any  foreign  power;  and  that  a  due  regard  for  their  own 
safety  compels  them  to  provide,  under  certain  contingencies,  for 
the  temporary  occupation  of  the  said  territory ;  they  at  the  same 
time  declaring  that  the  said  territory  shall,  in  their  hands,  re 
main  subject  to  future  negotiations. " 

At  the  same  time  Congress  enacted  a  law,  authorizing  the 
President  to  take  possession  of  Florida  or  any  part  of  it  in  case 
of  any  attempt  of  a  European  power  other  than  Spain  herself 
to  occupy  it,  using  to  that  end  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States ;  and  it  appropriated  public  funds  to  the  amount  of  $100,- 
000  for  "contingent  expenses. "  In  pursuance  of  this  policy  the 
President  directed  General  Matthews,  commanding  the  military 
forces  of  the  United  States  in  Georgia,  to  guard  against  the 
entry  of  any  foreign  power  into  Florida,  and  also  to  sound  the 
people  of  Florida  as  to  their  willingness  to  be  annexed  to  the 
United  States.  Nothing  needed  to  be  done  at  that  time;  but 
during  the  War  of  1812,  as  already  related,  the  western  part  of 
Florida  was  occupied  by  a  British  force,  which  used  that  Span- 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  307 

ish  territory  as  a  basis  of  hostile  operations  against  the  United 
States.  Whether  this  was  done  with  or  without  the  assent  of 
the  Spanish  government  does  not  appear,  nor  does  it  matter.  In 
either  case  the  wrong  and  menace  to  the  United  States  of  such 
use  of  nominally  neutral  territory  were  obvious.  At  the  very 
outbreak  of  that  war  Andrew  Jackson  had  suggested  the  seizure 
of  Florida,  and  had  offered  to  effect  it.  His  offer  was  not  ap 
proved — though  neither  was  it  disapproved — by  the  Govern 
ment.  But  toward  the  close  of  the  war,  after  the  British  had 
used  Florida  as  a  base  of  operations  against  us,  Jackson,  then  a 
major-general,  led  his  army  thither  and  drove  the  British  out 
of  Pensacola.  Thus  was  set  a  precedent  for  disregarding  Span 
ish  sovereignty  and  neutrality  whenever  it  seemed  necessary  to 
do  so  for  the  self -protection  of  the  United  States.  Again,  dur 
ing  that  war  a  British  officer  established  a  fort  on  the  Appa- 
lachicola  River,  where  he  remained  for  some  months  after  the 
conclusion  of  peace,  gathering  thither  Indians  and  runaway 
slaves  and  inciting  them  to  hostility  against  the  United  States. 
By  falsely  telling  the  Indians  that  the  United  States  was  under 
obligations  to  restore  to  them  their  former  holdings  of  land  in 
Georgia,  he  came  close  to  provoking  a  general  Indian  war. 
When  at  last  he  departed,  he  left  behind  him  a  considerable 
Negro  and  Indian  garrison,  with  stores  of  ammunition.  The 
place  thus  remained  a  danger  spot  for  more  than  a  year;  until, 
since  the  Spanish  authorities  would  do  nothing  about  it,  the 
United  States  sent  a  gunboat  thither,  which  invaded  Spanish 
waters  and  destroyed  the  outlaw  fort. 

While  there  was  a  cessation  of  activities  for  a  few  years,  there 
was  no  improvement  in  conditions,  and  early  in  Monroe's  term 
a  vigorous  policy  was  prescribed.  Our  Government  took  the 
consistent  and  logical  view  that  if  Spain  could  not  or  would  not 
keep  order  in  her  territory  so  as  to  prevent  its  becoming  a  peril 
and  an  actual  injury  to  us,  we  were  under  no  requirement  to  re 
spect  the  sovereignty,  but  were  at  liberty  to  invade  her  territory 
whenever  it  was  necessary  to  do  so  for  our  own  protection.  In 
1817  a  notorious  freebooter  named  Aury  settled  on  Amelia  Island, 
in  the  northeastern  corner  of  Florida,  and  made  that  place  head 
quarters  for  himself  and  a  gang  of  criminal  associates  in  raids 
upon  Georgia.  He  had  formerly  been  on  Galveston  Island, 


308  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Texas,  but  had  been  compelled  by  an  American  expedition  to 
decamp.  Spain  had  failed  to  check  his  criminal  activities  there, 
and  she  similarly  failed  to  interfere  at  Amelia  Island.  A  United 
States  naval  expedition  was  therefore  sent  thither,  which  not 
only  drove  him  away  but  also  raised  the  American  flag  over  that 
piece  of  Spanish  territory  and  practically  annexed  it  to  the 
territories  of  the  United  States.  Later  in  the  same  year  Jack 
son  was  directed  to  proceed  with  vigor  against  the  hostile  In 
dians  on  the  southern  frontier  and,  if  necessary,  to  follow  them 
across  the  boundary  into  Florida.  This  command  was  welcome 
to  him,  and  he  replied  with  a  letter  to  the  President  in  which  he 
said:  "Let  it  be  signified  to  me  through  any  channel  that  the 
possession  of  the  Floridas  would  be  desirable  to  the  United 
States,  and  in  sixty  days  it  will  be  accomplished."  Jackson 
suggested  in  the  letter  that  the  desired  intimation  might  be 
transmitted  to  him  through  one  "Mr.  J.  Rhea,"  who  had  for 
some  time  been  a  leader  of  some  American  filibusters  who  were 
trying  to  set  up  a  government  in  Florida  and  to  get  it  recog 
nized  by  and  admitted  to  the  United  States.  He  called  himself 
"president"  of  that  State.  When  this  letter  reached  Washing 
ton,  Monroe-  was  ill,  and  he  did  not  see  it  nor  even  hear  of  it 
until  a  year  afterward.  But,  according  to  Jackson's  subsequent 
statement,  Rhea  wrote  to  Jackson  that  Monroe  had  seen  it  and 
approved  it.  It  is  safe  to  assume  that  Rhea  did  write  to  that 
effect,  for  there  is  a  thousand  times  better  reason  for  suspecting 
him  than  Jackson  to  have  been  a  liar.  Jackson  also  probably 
knew  of  the  secret  action  of  Congress  and  the  orders  to  General 
Matthews  in  1811.  He  may  therefore  be  believed  to  have  acted 
in  good  faith  in  supposing  his  offer  of  conquest  to  have  been 
approved  and  in  construing  the  orders  of  the  war  department 
as  a  hint  that  the  administration  would  be  pleased  to  have  him 
invade  and  annex  Florida. 

At  any  rate  Jackson  acted  with  promptness  and  vigor.  In 
March,  1818,  he  was  on  the  Florida  frontier.  Meantime  he  had 
supplies  sent  around  by  water,  to  come  to  him  up  the  Escambia 
and  Appalachicola  rivers,  sending  word  to  the  Spanish  authori 
ties  that  any  interference  with  their  passage  through  Spanish 
territory  would  be  regarded  as  an  act  of  war  against  the  United 
States.  In  continuation  of  this  high-handed  and  arbitrary  pol- 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  309 

icy,  he  advanced  across  the  border  to  St.  Mark's,  and  seized  that 
place.  There  he  arrested  Alexander  Arbuthnot,  a  Scotch  trader, 
whom  he  charged  with  complicity  in  the  Indian  war;  and  at 
Suwanee,  some  miles  away,  he  seized  Robert  Ambrister,  also  a 
British  subject,  on  a  similar  charge.  The  two  men  were  tried, 
and  Arbuthnot  was  found  guilty  of  inciting  the  Indians  to  war, 
though  there  was  no  evidence  whatever  against  him  and  pre 
sumptions  were  all  in  his  favor,  and  he  was  condemned  to  be 
hanged.  Ambrister  was  charged  with  inciting  and  aiding  the 
Indians  to  levy  war.  He  made  no  defense  but  threw  himself 
upon  the  mercy  of  the  court.  Moreover,  he  had  no  legitimate 
business  in  Florida,  as  Arbuthnot  had,  but  was  confessedly  an 
adventurer.  He  was  condemned  to  be  shot ;  then  the  sentence 
was  commuted  to  flogging  and  imprisonment;  and  finally  Jack 
son  disapproved  the  commutation  and  ordered  him  to  be  shot. 
Both  men  were  accordingly  put  to  death.  Of  course  this  caused 
much  indignation  in  England.  Lord  Castlereagh  told  the  Amer 
ican  minister  that  such  was  the  temper  of  Parliament  and  of  the 
country  that  war  might  have  been  produced  by  the  holding  up 
of  a  finger,  and  an  address  to  the  crown  in  favor  of  war  would 
have  been  carried  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote.  The  diplomacy 
of  Adams  and  Rush,  however,  averted  serious  consequences. 

The  Spanish  government,  through  its  minister  at  Washington, 
Don  Luis  de  Onis,  made  prompt  and  vigorous  inquiries  concern 
ing  the  invasion  of  Florida  and  the  seizure  of  St.  Mark's  and 
other  places.  Were  these  things  done  by  order  or  with  the  sanc 
tion  of  the  American  government?  If  yes,  the  implication  was 
that  they  would  be  regarded  as  acts  of  war.  If  no,  then  the 
places  must  be  surrendered  to  Spain,  reparation  for  the  insult 
must  be  made,  and  Jackson  must  be  repudiated  and  punished. 
He  added  that  all  other  negotiations  would  be  suspended  until 
satisfaction  was  given  in  this  matter.  In  the  controversy  which 
followed  the  French  minister  at  Washington,  Hyde  de  Neuville, 
acted  as  a  benevolent  intermediary.  The  culmination  of  it  was 
in  a  powerful  letter  which  Adams  sent  in  November,  1818,  to 
Erving,  the  American  minister  at  Madrid,  which  amounted  to 
an  ultimatum  to  the  Spanish  government.  After  reviewing  in  a 
scathing  manner  the  provocations  which  the  United  States  had 
long  suffered,  and  the  failure  of  Spain  to  fulfil  her  treaty  obliga- 


310  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tions  and  her  actual  complicity  in  the  outrages,  Adams  said  that 
the  places  which  had  been  seized  would  be  restored  to  Spain  as 
soon  as  that  power  would  give  satisfactory  guarantees  of  good 
behavior.  But  Jackson  would  not  be  punished  nor  censured; 
for  even  if  he  had  exceeded  his  orders,  he  had  done  so  from  mo 
tives  of  pure  patriotism  and  had  acted  according  to  his  con 
ception  of  a  necessity  of  which  he  was  the  best  judge.  Counter- 
demands  of  the  United  States  were  presented,  especially  for  the 
investigation  of  the  conduct  of  Spanish  officials  and  their  pun 
ishment  for  violation  of  treaty  engagements.  Then,  in  his  most 
vigorous  style,  Adams  declared  that  Spain  could  not  excuse  her 
conduct  on  the  ground  of  weakness ;  that  the  United  States  could 
make  no  more  allowance  for  impotence  than  for  perfidy;  and 
that  Spain  must  immediately  make  her  election,  either  to  place 
a  force  in  Florida  at  once  adequate  for  the  protection  of  her 
territory  and  the  fulfilment  of  her  engagements,  or  cede  to  the 
United  States  a  province  of  which  she  retained  nothing  but  the 
nominal  possession,  but  which  was  in  fact  a  derelict,  open  to  the 
occupancy  of  every  enemy,  civilized  or  savage,  of  the  United 
States,  and  serving  no  other  earthly  purpose  than  as  a  point  of 
annoyance  to  this  country.  "We  shall,"  he  added,  "hear  no 
more  apologies  from  Spanish  governors  and  commandants  of 
their  inability  to  perform  the  duties  of  the  offices  and  the  solemn 
contracts  of  their  country.  The  duty  of  this  Government  to 
protect  the  persons  and  property  of  our  fellow-citizens  on  the 
borders  of  the  United  States  is  imperative — it  must  be  dis 
charged." 

The  purport  of  this  language  was  unmistakable.  The  United 
States  government  was  tremendously  in  earnest  in  its  vindica 
tion  of  "the  immutable  principle  of  self-defense."  It  was,  of 
course,  obvious  that  Spain  was  physically  incapable  of  complying 
with  the  just  demands  of  this  country.  Throughout  all  Span 
ish  America,  from  Mexico  to  La  Plata,  there  was  rebellion 
against  her  sovereignty,  which  she  was  quite  unable  to  suppress 
or  even  to  check.  The  Madrid  government  therefore  directed 
De  Onis  to  renew  negotiations  for  the  cession  of  Florida.  He 
did  so,  with  all  the  coolness  and  cunning  of  one  of  the  most  astute 
diplomats  of  a  nation  to  which  diplomacy  was  second  nature. 
But  in  the  resourceful,  ^imperturbable,  and  inflexible  Adams  he 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  311 

found  more  than  his  match.  Baffled,  he  turned  the  matter  over 
to  his  home  government,  at  Madrid,  which  presently  sent  it 
back  to  him.  An  offer  of  friendly  mediation  was  made  by  the 
British  government,  but  Adams  declined  it;  mindful,  no  doubt, 
of  the  British  refusal  of  Russian  mediation  between  Great  Brit 
ain  and  the  United  States  half  a  dozen  years  before.  There 
was,  however,  another  and  a  stronger  reason  for  declining  it. 
This  was  a  controversy  between  America  and  Spain  over  exclu 
sively  American  affairs,  in  which  no  other  power  was  concerned, 
and  America  and  Spain  must  settle  it  between  themselves.  The 
precedent  was  established  of  nonacceptance  of  European  inter 
vention  in  American  controversies. 

The  outcome  was  that  at  last  the  Spanish  pride  of  De  Onis 
yielded  to  the  Yankee  inflexibility  of  Adams,  and  on  February 
22,  1819,  a  treaty  of  amity,  settlements,  and  limits  was  signed. 
Under  it,  Spain  was  to  cede  the  whole  of  Florida,  and  also  what 
ever  shadowy  title  she  had  to  Oregon,  to  the  United  States. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  United  States  was  to  recognize  the  Sa- 
bine  River  instead  of  the  Rio  Grande  as  the  southwestern 
boundary  of  Louisiana,  thus  conceding  all  of  Texas  to  Spain — 
or  to  Mexico,  since  that  country  was  about  to  establish  its  inde 
pendence.  Both  parties  renounced  all  claims  for  damages  to 
themselves  or  their  people.  The  United  States  was  not  to  pay 
Spain  any  price  whatever  for  Florida,  but  was  itself  to  satisfy 
the  claims  of  its  citizens  to  the  extent  of  not  more  than  $5,000,- 
000,  for  damages  for  which  Spain  was  responsible.  On  the  whole 
this  was  an  eminently  fair  settlement.  The  United  States  Sen 
ate  promptly  and  unanimously  ratified  it.  But  the  Spanish 
government  declined  to  do  so,  unless  the  United  States  would 
recognize  as  valid  a  number  of  extensive  grants  of  public  lands 
in  Florida  to  Spanish  noblemen,  which  were  made  after  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  had  been  practically  agreed  upon ;  and  unless 
the  United  States  would  also  promise  not  to  recognize  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  revolted  Spanish  colonies  in  Central  and  South 
America,  and  not  to  permit  aid  to  be  sent  to  the  revolutionists 
in  Texas  and  Mexico.  These  things  the  United  States  refused  to 
do,  and  the  treaty  lapsed.  Monroe  and  Adams  thereupon  argued 
that  Spain  had  rejected  the  treaty  upon  insufficient  grounds,  and 
that  the  United  States  would  be  justified  in  carrying  its  provi- 


312  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

sions  into  effect  just  as  though  it  had  been  ratified  by  Spain. 
Congress  did  not,  however,  sanction  so  strenuous  a  course,  and 
counsels  of  patience  prevailed.  Spain  sent  over  another  minis 
ter,  General  Vives,  in  the  hope  that  he  could  secure  better  terms, 
but  the  hope  was  vain.  Adams  was  inflexible.  He  would  make 
no  concessions.  He  would  not  even  enter  into  a  discussion  of 
any.  All  he  would  do  would  be  to  sign  a  duplicate  of  the  lapsed 
treaty,  with,  however,  one  addition.  That  was,  that  Spain  must 
specifically  annul  the  land  grants  which  she  had  made  in  Flor 
ida.  At  the  last,  General  Vives  yielded,  and  the  treaty  was 
signed,  and  was  ratified  by  the  Madrid  government  in  October, 
1820,  and  by  the  United  States  Senate  in  February,  1821; 
though  in  the  latter  body  it  encountered  some  opposition  on 
personal  and  factional  grounds.  This  opposition  was  inspired 
by  Clay,  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  who  was  angry  be 
cause  Monroe  had  made  Adams  instead  of  himself  secretary  of 
state.  He  urged  that  the  Senate  alone  could  not  by  treaty  re 
nounce  Texas,  since  that  territory  was  property  of  the  United 
States  and  the  Constitution  vested  the  power  to  dispose  of  prop 
erty  not  in  the  President  and  Senate  but  in  Congress  as  a  whole, 
including  both  Houses.  The  treaty  was  finally  ratified  by  a 
vote  of  40  to  4. 

In  two  directions  the  acquisition  of  Florida  had  immediate 
and  considerable  effects  upon  our  foreign  relations.  One  was 
to  arouse  in  the  United  States  a  keen  interest  in  the  island  of 
Cuba.  This  " Pearl  of  the  Antilles"  still  remained  in  the  pos 
session  of  Spain,  while  all  her  mainland  colonies  were  revolting 
and  establishing  their  independence.  But  its  situation,  almost 
within  sight  from  the  coast  of  our  new  territory  of  Florida,  and 
commanding  the  southern  side  of  the  Florida  Channel  through 
which  our  commerce  between  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Atlan 
tic  Ocean  must  pass,  invested  it  with  peculiar  importance  to 
this  country  and  caused  projects  for  its  annexation  to  be  formed. 
Nor  was  it  lacking  in  importance  to  Great  Britain  and  France. 
Those  powers  already  possessed  considerable  holdings  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  they  were  rivals  for  the  reversionary  title  to 
the  remaining  Spanish  islands,  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico.  Each  real 
ized  that  whichever  of  them  should  secure  those  islands  would 
by  virtue  of  that  fact  become  the  dominant  power  in  the  West 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  313 

Indies;  and  they  both  felt  sure  that  Spain  would  soon  have  to 
relinquish  them.  This  latter  belief  prevailed  widely  in  the 
United  States,  and  was  by  no  means  unknown  in  Cuba  itself. 
Indeed,  a  party  was  organized  in  that  island  in  1822  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  securing  annexation,  and  in  September  of  that 
year  direct  overtures  to  that  end  were  made  to  the  American 
government.  Monroe  received  them  cautiously  and  in  a  non 
committal  manner.  He  sent  a  confidential  agent  to  Cuba  to 
observe  and  report  upon  conditions  there,  but  gave  the  annexa 
tion  movement  no  direct  encouragement. 

At  this  time  George  Canning  became  Prime  Minister  of  Eng 
land,  a  statesman  of  exceptional  acuteness,  vigilance,  and  ag 
gressive  patriotism,  devoted  to  the  safeguarding  of  British  in 
terests  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  He  quickly  perceived  the  trend 
of  affairs  in  relation  to  Cuba,  and  was  convinced  that  the  trans 
fer  of  that  island  to  any  other  power  than  Spain  would  be  a  mat 
ter  of  vital  concern  to  Great  Britain.  Learning  of  the  Cuban 
overtures  to  the  United  States,  in  December,  1822,  he  brought 
the  subject  before  his  cabinet  and  suggested  that  annexation 
of  Cuba  by  this  country  would  be  one  of  the  most  serious  blows 
that  could  be  struck  at  British  interests.  He  made,  however, 
no  diplomatic  representations  in  the  subject,  but  sent  a  consid 
erable  naval  squadron  to  the  coasts  of  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico, 
doubtless  with  the  strenuous  purpose  of  preventing,  by  force  if 
necessary,  any  such  change  in  the  sovereignty  and  occupancy  of 
the  island.  In  this  he  was  probably  over-anxious,  for  there  is 
no  indication  that  the  American  government  contemplated  any 
such  step,  or  that  it  would  have  essayed  it  if  the  island  had  been 
left  unguarded.  On  the  other  hand,  Canning's  action  quickly 
aroused  American  concern,  and  gave  rise  to  a  not  unnatural 
suspicion  that  Great  Britain  was  meditating  the  seizure  or  other 
acquisition  of  the  island.  The  outcome  of  that  feeling  was  the 
writing  by  Adams  of  a  document  which  marked  the  dawn  of  a 
new  epoch  in  American  foreign  policy.  This  was  a  letter  to 
Hugh  Nelson,  of  Virginia,  who  at  the  beginning  of  1823  had  suc 
ceeded  John  Forsyth  as  minister  to  Spain ;  Forsyth  having  suc 
ceeded  Erving  in  1819.  It  was  dated  April  28,  1823,  and  con 
tained  official  instructions  to  Nelson  as  to  his  conduct  in  the 
war  which  was  impending  between  Spain  and  France,  because 


314  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  the  latter 's  intervention  in  behalf  of  Ferdinand  VII.     It  then 
continued,  on  the  subject  of  Cuba,  as  follows: 

"Whatever  may  be  the  issue  of  this  war,  it  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  the  dominion  of  Spain  upon  the  American  conti 
nents,  north  and  south,  is  irrevocably  gone.  But  the  islands  of 
Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  still  remain  nominally,  and  so  far  really, 
dependent  upon  her,  that  she  yet  possesses  the  power  of  trans 
ferring  her  own  dominion  over  them,  together  with  the  posses 
sion  of  them,  to  others.  These  islands  are  natural  appendages 
to  the  North  American  continent,  and  one  of  them,  almost  in 
sight  of  our  shores,  from  a  multitude  of  considerations  has  be 
come  an  object  of  transcendent  importance  to  the  commercial 
and  political  interests  of  our  Union.  Its  commanding  position 
with  reference  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  West  Indian  seas, 
its  situation  midway  between  our  southern  coast  and  the  Island 
of  San  Domingo,  its  safe  and  capacious  harbor  of  the  Havana, 
fronting  a  long  line  of  our  shores  destitute  of  the  same  advan 
tages,  the  nature  of  its  productions  and  of  its  wants,  furnishing 
the  supplies  and  needing  the  returns  of  a  commerce  immensely 
profitable  and  mutually  beneficial,  give  it  an  importance  in  the 
sum  of  our  national  interests  with  which  that  of  no  other  for 
eign  territory  can  be  compared,  and  little  inferior  to  that  which 
binds  the  different  members  of  this  Union  together.  Such  in 
deed  are,  between  the  interests  of  that  island  and  of  this  coun 
try,  the  geographical,  commercial,  moral,  and  political  relations 
formed  by  nature,  gathering  in  the  process  of  time,  and  even  now 
verging  to  maturity,  that  in  looking  forward  to  the  probable 
course  of  events  for  the  short  period  of  half  a  century,  it  is 
scarcely  possible  to  resist  the  conviction  that  the  annexation  of 
Cuba  to  our  Federal  Republic  will  be  indispensable  to  the  con 
tinuance  and  integrity  of  the  Union  itself.  .  .  .  There  are  laws 
of  political  as  well  as  of  physical  gravitation.  And  if  an  apple» 
severed  by  the  tempest  from  its  native  tree,  cannot  choose  but 
to  fall  to  the  ground,  Cuba,  forcibly  disjoined  from  its  unnatural 
connection  with  Spain,  and  incapable  of  self-support,  can  gravi 
tate  only  toward  the  North  American  Union,  which,  by  the  same 
law  of  nature,  cannot  cast  her  off  from  her  bosom.  The  transfer 
of  Cuba  to  Great  Britain  would  be  an  event  unpropitious  to  the 
interests  of  this  Union.  .  .  .  The  question  both  of  our  right  and 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  315 

of  our  power  to  prevent  it,  if  necessary,  by  force,  already  ob 
trudes  itself  upon  our  councils,  and  the  administration  is  called 
upon  in  the  performance  of  its  duties  to  the  nation,  at  least  to 
use  all  the  means  within  its  competency  to  guard  against  and 
forefend  it." 

That  was  in  effect  a  more  concrete  statement  concerning  Cuba 
of  the  principle  which  had  already  been  less  explicitly  yet  un 
mistakably  made  concerning  Florida,  and  before  that  concern 
ing  Louisiana,  to  wit,  that  while  Spain  might  continue  to  hold 
her  North  American  possessions,  so  long  as  she  administered 
them  satisfactorily,  they  must  not  pass  from  her  possession  to 
that  of  any  other  European  power,  but  upon  her  relinquishment 
of  them  must  become  the  property  of  the  United  States.  That 
was  the  beginning  of  what  presently  became  perhaps  the  most 
important  principle  of  all  the  American  code  of  foreign  policy. 
In  that  declaration  Adams  had  general  support  and  little  or  no 
antagonism.  Jefferson,  writing  from  his  retirement  to  Monroe 
only  a  few  weeks  later,  expressed  in  part  the  same  view,  though 
he  coupled  it  with  an  unfortunate  and  quite  inadmissible  sug 
gestion  of  an  "entangling  alliance" — such  as  he  had  formerly 
deprecated — with  Great  Britain.  He  wrote: 

'  *  Cuba  alone  seems  at  present  to  hold  up  a  speck  of  war  to  us. 
Its  possession  by  Great  Britain  would  indeed  be  a  great  calamity 
to  us.  Could  we  induce  her  to  join  us  in  guaranteeing  its  in 
dependence  against  all  the  world,  except  Spain,  it  would  be 
nearly  as  valuable  as  if  it  were  our  own.  But  should  she  take 
it,  I  would  not  immediately  go  to  war  for  it;  because  the  first 
war  on  other  accounts  will  give  it  to  us,  or  the  island  will  give 
herself  to  us  when  able  to  do  so. ' ' 

This  resolute  attitude  of  the  American  government  served  its 
purpose  without  being  reinforced  with  any  overt  act.  Spain 
continued  to  decline,  and  her  American  colonies  on  the  mainland 
all  seceded,  leaving  to  her  only  the  two  islands  of  Cuba  and 
Porto  Eico.  But  no  other  power  ventured  to  take  them  from 
her. 

The  other  direct  result  of  the  Florida  annexation  was  felt 
in  a  remote  quarter,  on  the  shores  of  the  northern  Pacific  Ocean. 
In  1808  the  Russian  government  had  complained  that  Americans 
were  conducting  a  clandestine  trade  in  arms  and  ammunition 


316  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

with  the  Indians  of  the  northern  Pacific  coast,  and  asked  that 
Congress  forbid  such  practices.  This  request  was  not  granted, 
and  in  1810  another  proposal  was  made,  to  the  effect  that  as  Rus 
sian  vessels  were  not  admitted  to  the  Chinese  port  of  Canton, 
while  Americans  were,  the  latter  should  do  the  carrying  trade 
from  Russian  America  to  China,  but  should  not  supply  the  In 
dians  with  powder  and  arms.  This  also  was  refused  by  John 
Quincy  Adams,  then  our  minister  to  Russia,  on  the  ground  that 
there  had  as  yet  been  no  satisfactory  definition  of  the  extent  of 
Russian  territory  in  North  America,  The  Russian  government 
then  proposed,  through  Daschkoff,  its  charge  d'affaires  at  Wash 
ington,  that  the  limit  of  Russian  territory  should  be  tentatively 
fixed  at  a  parallel  some  degrees  south  of  the  southernmost  Rus 
sian  establishment,  until  a  final  definition  could  be  effected. 
This  suggestion  was  rejected  by  the  United  States,  which  also 
declined  to  restrain  its  citizens  from  trading  with  the  Indians. 
It  held  that  if  the  Indians  were  Russian  subjects,  Americans 
were  free  to  trade  with  them  under  the  penalties  operating 
within  that  territory.  If  they  were  not  Russian  subjects  but 
independent  tribes,  then  Russia  had  nothing  to  say  to  us  on  the 
subject.  In  any  case,  the  United  States  was  under  no  obligation 
to  comply  with  the  Russian  request ;  it  could  not  make  a  treaty 
on  the  subject  without  getting  into  a  controversy  with  Spain, 
whose  territorial  claims  extended  up  that  coast  to  the  Russian 
line,  wherever  it  was ;  and  it  would  have  no  further  negotiations 
until  the  Russian  government  was  ready  to  fix  authoritatively  its 
southern  boundary  line. 

The  matter  was  soon  taken  up  again  by  Romanzoff  with 
Adams  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  the  Russian  chancellor  astonished 
the  American  minister  with  the  information  that  his  Govern 
ment  claimed  the  whole  coast,  down  to  the  Columbia  River. 
Adams  refused  to  discuss  seriously  so  extravagant  a  claim,  but 
resolved  in  his  own  mind  to  oppose  it  if  ever  an  attempt  should 
be  made  practically  to  assert  it;  and  the  subject  was  then 
dropped.  Thus  matters  stood  when  in  1821  in  the  Florida 
treaty  Spain  transferred  to  the  United  States  all  her  right  and 
title  to  the  Oregon  territory.  Her  right  and  title  were  in  fact 
only  nominal;  but  her  formal  grant  of  them  was  not  devoid 
of  value  for  diplomatic  purposes.  It  gave  us  that  additional 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  317 

confirmation  of  the  rights  which  we  already  claimed  by  virtue 
of  discovery,  exploration,  and  settlement,  and  this  speedily  be 
came  of  practical  service  to  us.  A  modus  vivendi  had  been 
established  with  Great  Britain,  for  holding  in  abeyance  her  and 
our  rival  claims  to  Oregon.  But  now  Russia  reappeared  upon 
the  scene  as  another  and  more  arrogant  claimant.  The  emperor 
on  September  4,  1821,  issued  a  decree  claiming,  for  the  Rus 
sian-American  Company,  the  entire  Pacific  coast  of  America 
north  of  the  fifty-first  parallel  of  latitude — at  about  the  north 
ern  end  of  Vancouver  Island — and  forbidding  the  vessels  of  all 
other  nations  to  approach  within  one  hundred  Italian  miles  of 
that  coast.  This  would  have  made  the  whole  of  Bering  Sea  and 
much  of  the  North  Pacific  a  mare  clausum,  from  America  to 
Siberia.  Adams  instantly  challenged  this  decree  and  refused  to 
recognize  it  as  legitimate  or  valid,  and  a  spirited  controversy  fol 
lowed.  Adams  recalled  the  Russian  proposal  of  1810,  and  per 
ceived  in  this  attempt  at  a  territorial  grant  a  fulfilment  of  his 
apprehensions  at  that  time.  Poletica,  the  Russian  minister  at 
Washington,  explained  that  in  the  Russian  view  these  territorial 
claims  were  exceedingly  moderate  and  that  Russia  might  justly 
demand  much  more;  even  to  the  extent  of  declaring  the  whole 
North  Pacific,  four  thousand  miles  wide,  from  the  fifty-first  de 
gree  on  the  American  coast  to  the  forty-fifth  on  the  Asian  coast, 
a  closed  sea,  into  which  no  vessels  but  Russian  might  enter. 
Adams  replied  that  in  1799  the  emperor  had  designated  the 
fifty-fifth  parallel  of  latitude  as  the  southern  boundary  of  his 
possessions  in  America.  Poletica  then  referred  the  matter  to  St. 
Petersburg,  to  be  disposed  of  there;  hoping  that  our  minister 
there,  Henry  Middleton,  would  prove  less  resolute  than  Adams. 
But  Adams  sent  stiff  instructions  to  Middleton,  which  the  latter 
vigorously  upheld.  He  denied  Russia's  claims  to  the  coast  south 
of  the  fifty-fifth  parallel,  and  also  her  claims  to  the  sea  beyond 
the  three-mile  line.  While  these  negotiations  were  in  progress 
Poletica  was  replaced  at  Washington  by  Baron  Tuyll,  and  to 
him  on  July  17,  1823,  Adams  bluntly  declared  that  "we  should 
contest  the  right  of  Russia  to  any  territorial  establishment  on 
this  continent,  and  should  assume  distinctly  the  principle  that 
the  American  continents  are  no  longer  subjects  for  any  new 
European  colonial  establishments."  This  was  a  further  devel- 


318  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

opment  of  the  great  principle  already  broached  in  relation  to 
Cuba,  to  wit,  the  hegemony  of  the  United  States  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere;  of  immense  importance  in  its  bearings  upon  our 
subsequent  relations. 

The  negotiations  were  thereafter  conducted  at  St.  Petersburg, 
between  Middleton  and  Count  Nesselrode,  the  Russian  minister 
for  foreign  affairs,  and  the  former  showed  himself  as  resolute 
as  Adams  himself  in  upholding  American  rights  and  opposing 
Russia's  extravagant  claims.  In  a  formal  memorandum  Middle- 
ton  declared  that  by  virtue  of  the  discovery  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia  River  and  the  real  occupation  and  continued  posses 
sion  of  territory,  the  United  States  had  perfected  its  title  to 
sovereignty  on  that  coast;  that  by  virtue  of  the  Florida  treaty 
the  United  States  had  acquired  all  of  Spain's  former  rights  and 
title  on  that  coast;  that  Great  Britain  had  no  possession  on  that 
coast  nor  any  right  to  a  portion  of  it  except  such  as  she  might 
have  acquired  from  Spain,  which  was  therefore  concurrent  with 
the  claims  of  the  United  States ;  that  Russia  and  England  could 
therefore  make  no  compact  concerning  the  coast  which  would 
affect  American  rights ;  and  that  the  United  States  was  willing 
to  recognize  Russian  title  to  the  coast  as  far  south  as  the  fifty- 
fifth  degree  of  latitude.  This  memorandum  had,  in  fact,  been 
sent  to  Middleton  by  Adams.  Nesselrode  submitted  it  to  the 
emperor,  and  at  a  second  interview  suggested  some  changes  in 
it,  including  that  of  the  line  of  demarcation  from  the  fifty-fifth 
parallel  to  that  of  54  degrees,  40  minutes.  This  change  was  ac 
cepted  by  Middleton  at  the  third  interview,  and  thus  that  bound 
ary  line,  which  has  become  historic,  was  fixed.  Further  confer 
ences  were  held,  devoted  chiefly  to  discussion  of  trade  and  fishery 
rights,  until  April  17,  1824,  when  the  first  treaty  ever  made  be 
tween  the  United  States  and  Russia  was  signed  by  Middleton, 
Nesselrode,  and  Poletica.  In  this  convention  Russia  relin 
quished  all  claims  upon  the  coast  south  of  the  latitude  of  54  de 
grees,  40  minutes,  the  southern  boundary  of  Alaska,  and  recog 
nized  the  common  three-mile  limit  of  her  coastal  waters.  Free 
dom  of  trade  was  to  be  enjoyed  by  both  nations  for  ten  years, 
but  neither  was  to  traffic  with  Indians  in  intoxicating  liquors, 
firearms,  or  ammunition;  and  neither  power  was  to  search  the 
vessels  of  the  other.  With  this  treaty  the  Russian-American 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  319 

Company  was  greatly  displeased,  regarding  it  as  a  fatal  blow 
to  its  prosperity.  The  Russian  government  itself,  however,  pro 
fessed  to  be  much  pleased,  and  to  regard  it  as  a  triumph  for  its 
diplomacy.  In  fact,  the  treaty  was  a  great  victory  for  the 
United  States;  and  it  was  the  more  gratifying  to  this  country 
and  to  the  President  personally  for  the  reason  that  it  had  been 
made  after  the  publication  in  Europe  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
with  its  direct  defiance  of  the  schemes  of  American  reconquest 
which  Russia  had  been  foremost  in  pushing.  It  was  promptly 
ratified  by  the  Senate,  and  was  proclaimed  on  January  12,  1825. 

It  had  been  expected  that  as  Great  Britain  was  a  joint  claim 
ant  with  us  in  Oregon,  and  was  therefore  equally  interested  in 
resisting  Russian  pretensions,  she  would  cooperate  with  us  in 
making  this  treaty.  But  Canning  declined  to  do  so.  He  was 
unwilling  to  acknowledge  American  title  to  any  portion  of  the 
Pacific  coast.  He  was  not  pleased  with  Adams's  notice  to  Baron 
Tuyll,  not  so  much  in  its  challenge  of  Russia 's  right  to  any  estab 
lishment  on  the  coast  as  in  its  intimation  of  resistance  to  any 
further  colonization  of  America  by  European  powers;  which  he 
interpreted  as  a  menace  to  Canadian  development.  He  feared 
that  in  a  tripartite  conference  Russia  and  America  might  unite 
to  force  Great  Britain  into  some  undesirable  course.  He  also 
anticipated  the  possibility  of  Russia's  being  so  displeased  at 
Adams's  declaration  and  at  the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  to  discon 
tinue  negotiations  with  the  United  States,  an  event  which  might 
be  of  advantage  to  Great  Britain.  He  therefore  decided  to  ne 
gotiate  separately  and  independently  with  Russia.  But  when 
the  American  treaty  was  made,  it  excited  the  envy  of  the  British 
government  and  was  used  by  it  as  the  basis  of  its  own  subsequent 
treaty  with  Russia. 

It  should  be  added  that  in  1823  Middleton  undertook  another 
interesting  negotiation  with  Nesselrode.  This  was  to  gain  Rus 
sian  adherence  to  a  convention  for  the  perpetual  abolition  of 
privateering;  the  exemption  of  private  goods  and  vessels  from 
capture  in  war;  the  establishment  of  the  principle  that  "free 
ships  make  free  goods  and  persons,"  and  that  neutral  property 
is  free  even  when  on  an  enemy's  vessel ;  the  making  of  shipbuild 
ing  material  noncontraband ;  and  the  abolition  of  the  impress 
ment  of  American  sailors.  Nesselrode,  after  much  delay,  re- 


320  AMERICA'S  FOEEIGN  RELATIONS 

plied  that  the  emperor  sympathized  with  those  objects,  but 
deemed  it  not  worth  while  to  make  any  agreement  concerning 
them  until  the  other  great  powers  were  ready  to  join  in  "an 
act  which  would  be  a  crown  of  glory  to  modern  diplo 
macy.  ' ' 

Another  great  issue  in  American  foreign  affairs  now  began 
to  loom  up  at  the  south.  Many  years  before,  the  patriotic 
dreamer  Miranda,  who  had  served  on  Washington's  staff  in  our 
Revolution,  had  broached  the  scheme  of  South  American  inde 
pendence,  and  had  won  the  sympathy  and  encouragement  of 
Hamilton,  but  had  attained  no  practical  success.  The  seeds  of 
revolution  were  planted,  however,  and  as  Spain  steadily  declined 
in  authority  these  germinated  and  grew  in  a  fertile  soil.  The 
conquest  of  Spain  by  Napoleon  in  1807  caused  a  reaction  of 
loyalty  and  then  gave  an  impetus  to  the  revolution.  The  colo 
nists  were  at  first  inclined  to  resent  the  deposition  of  Charles 
IV  and  the  imposition  of  Joseph  Bonaparte  upon  the  Spanish 
throne  in  his  place,  and  they  formed  various  juntas  in  the  prov 
inces,  like  those  in  Spain  itself,  for  resisting  the  usurper  and 
maintaining  the  title  of  Ferdinand  VII,  the  son  of  Charles. 
These  sought  the  aid  or  at  least  the  sympathy  of  the  United 
States,  but  in  vain.  They  also  sought  the  recognition  of  and 
cooperation  with  the  royalist  regency  at  Cadiz,  which  was  work 
ing  for  the  enthronement  of  Ferdinand  VII.  But  that  body 
with  characteristic  fatuity  refused  to  recognize  them  in  any  way. 
Thereupon,  since  Spain  would  not  accept  their  help  in  restoring 
her  legitimate  sovereign,  they  decided  to  have  no  more  to  do 
with  her,  and  to  seek  independence.  When  in  1810  Napoleon 
seemed  to  be  master  of  Spain,  the  leading  men  of  Caracas  deposed 
the  Spanish  colonial  officers  and  organized  a  "Junta  Conserva- 
toria,"  which  presently  sent  two  envoys  to  the  United  States, 
Don  Juan  Vincente  Bolivar  and  Don  Telesforo  Ozea,  with  the 
announcement  that  Venezuela  had  seceded  from  Spain.  During 
the  following  two  years  various  papers  relating  to  the  independ 
ence  of  Venezuela  were  presented  to  our  state  department,  with 
the  result  that  in  his  annual  message  in  December,  1811,  Madison 
wrote  as  follows: 

"In  contemplating  the  scenes  which  distinguish  this  moment 
ous  epoch,  and  .estimating  their  claims  to  our  attention,  it  is 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  321 

impossible  to  overlook  those  developing  themselves  among  the 
great  communities  which  occupy  the  southern  portion  of  our  own 
hemisphere  and  extend  into  our  neighborhood.  An  enlarged 
philanthropy  and  an  enlightened  forecast  concur  in  imposing 
on  the  national  councils  an  obligation  to  take  a  deep  interest 
in  their  destinies,  to  cherish  reciprocal  sentiments  of  good  will, 
to  regard  the  progress  of  events,  and  not  to  be  unprepared  for 
whatever  order  of  things  may  be  ultimately  established."  This 
part  of  the  message  was  referred  in  the  House  to  a  select  com 
mittee,  which  required  of  the  secretary  of  state  whether  it  was 
known  to  the  Government  that  any  of  the  Spanish-American 
provinces  "have  declared  themselves  independent,  or  that  ma 
terial  changes  have  taken  place  in  their  political  relations." 
Mr.  Monroe  in  reply  transmitted  a  copy  of  the  Venezuelan  decla 
ration,  and  added:  "This  act  was  communicated  to  this  Gov 
ernment  by  order  of  the  congress,  composed  of  deputies  from 
those  provinces,  assembled  at  Caracas.  It  is  not  ascertained  that 
any  other  of  the  Spanish  provinces  have  as  yet  entered  into  sim 
ilar  declarations;  but  it  is  known  that  most  if  not  all  of  them 
on  the  continent  are  in  a  revolutionary  state.  The  progress 
made  in  that  direction  by  some  of  them  will  best  appear  in  the 
documents  which  have  already  been  communicated  to  you." 
The  committee,  on  December  10,  1811,  reported  a  joint  resolution 
to  the  effect  that  the  United  States  beheld  "with  friendly  inter 
est  the  establishment  of  independent  sovereignties  by  the  Span 
ish  provinces  in  America,  consequent  upon  the  actual  state  of  the 
monarchy  to  which  they  belonged ;  that,  as  neighbors  and  inhabi 
tants  of  the  same  hemisphere,  the  United  States  feel  great  solici 
tude  for  their  welfare;  and  that,  when  these  provinces  shall 
have  attained  the  condition  of  nations  by  the  just  exercise  of  their 
rights,  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representatives  will  unite 
with  the  executive  in  establishing  with  them,  as  sovereign  and 
independent  States,  such  amicable  relations  and  commercial  in 
tercourse  as  may  require  their  legislative  authority."  No  ac 
tion  on  this  resolution  was  taken. 

A  few  weeks  after  the  Congress  at  Caracas,  in  May,  1810,  a 
junta  at  Buenos  Aires  began  a  revolution  against  the  Napoleonic 
usurpation,  which  was  sanctioned  by  the  viceroy;  and  sent 
Colonel  Don  Martin  Thompson  as  an  envoy  to  the  United  States. 

VOL.  1—21 


322  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Six  years  later,  on  July  9,  1816,  a  congress  at  Tucuman  declared 
the  United  Provinces  of  the  Rio  de  la  Plata  to  be  a  free  and  in 
dependent  nation.  Thereupon  Colonel  Thompson  was  super 
seded  as  agent  of  that  country  by  Don  Manuel  Hermengildo 
de  Aguirre,  who  also  bore  semiprivate  authority  from  Chile  to 
purchase  ships  of  war  and  warlike  materials.  His  commission 
did  not  invest  him  with  rank  as  a  public  minister,  nor  did  he 
bear  full  power  to  negotiate  as  such.  "Neither  the  letter  of 
which  he  was  the  bearer,  nor  he  himself,  at  his  first  interviews 
with  the  secretary  of  state,  suggested  that  he  was  authorized  to 
ask  the  acknowledgment  of  his  Government  as  independent;  a 
circumstance  which  derived  additional  weight  from  the  fact  that 
his  predecessor,  Don  Martin  Thompson,  had  been  dismissed  for 
having  transcended  his  powers."  Such  a  demand  was  made 
by  him,  however,  in  a  letter  of  December  16,  1817,  which  was 
followed  by  conferences  with  the  secretary  of  state.  In  these 
conferences  he  stated,  in  response  to  Mr.  Adams's  inquiries, 
that  the  Government  whose  acknowledgment  he  desired  "was 
the  country  which  had,  before  the  revolution,  been  the  vice- 
royalty  of  La  Plata. ' '  When  asked  whether  this  did  not  include 
Montevideo,  and  the  territory  occupied  by  the  Portuguese,  the 
Banda  Oriental,  understood  to  be  under  the  government  of 
Artigas,  and  several  provinces  still  in  the  undisputed  possession 
of  Spain,  he  replied  that  it  did,  but  that  Artigas,  though  hostile 
to  the  Government  of  Buenos  Aires,  supported  the  cause  of  in 
dependence,  and  that  Portugal  could  not  ultimately  maintain 
possession  of  Montevideo.  Mr.  Adams  stated  that  any  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  Government  of  La  Plata  was  deemed  by  the  Presi 
dent  to  be  for  the  time  inexpedient. 

In  advising  the  President  at  this  time  Adams  observed  that  in 
Venezuela  the  contending  forces  seemed  to  be  at  a  deadlock,  in 
which  neither  was  making  progress.  "In  this  state  the  inde 
pendence  of  Venezuela  can  scarcely  be  considered  in  a  condition 
to  claim  the  recognition  of  neutral  powers.  But  there  is  a  stage 
in  such  contests  when  the  parties  struggling  for  independence 
have,  as  I  conceive,  a  right  to  demand  its  acknowledgment  by 
neutral  parties,  and  when  the  acknowledgment  may  be  granted 
without  departure  from  the  obligations  of  neutrality.  It  is  the 
stage  when  independence  is  established  as  a  matter  of  fact  so 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  323 

as  to  leave  the  chances  of  the  opposite  party  to  recover  their 
dominion  utterly  desperate.  The  neutral  nation  must,  of  course, 
judge  for  itself  when  this  period  has  arrived ;  and  as  the  belliger 
ent  nation  has  the  same  right  to  judge  for  itself,  it  is  very  likely 
to  judge  differently  from  the  neutral  and  to  make  it  a  cause  or 
pretext  for  war,  as  Great  Britain  did  expressly  against  France 
in  our  Revolution,  and  substantially  against  Holland.  If  war 
thus  results  in  point  of  fact  from  the  measure  of  recognizing 
a  contested  independence,  the  moral  right  or  wrong  of  the  war 
depends  upon  the  justice  and  sincerity  and  prudence  with  which 
the  recognizing  nation  took  the  step.  I  am  satisfied  that  the 
cause  of  the  South  Americans,  so  far  as  it  consists  in  the  asser 
tion  of  independence  against  Spain,  is  just.  But  the  justice  of 
a  cause,  however  it  may  enlist  individual  feelings  in  its  favor, 
is  not  sufficient  to  justify  third  parties  in  siding  with  it.  The 
fact  and  the  right  combined  can  alone  authorize  a  neutral  to 
acknowledge  a  new  and  disputed  sovereignty.  The  neutral  may, 
indeed,  infer  the  right  from  the  fact,  but  not  the  fact  from  the 
right.  If  Buenos  Aires  confined  its  demand  of  recognition  to 
the  provinces  of  which  it  is  in  actual  possession,  and  if  it  would 
assert  its  entire  independence  by  agreeing  to  place  the  United 
States  upon  the  footing  of  the  most  favored  nation,  I  should 
think  the  time  now  arrived  when  its  Government  might  be  recog 
nized  without  a  breach  of  neutrality. ' ' 

Material  aid  was  extended  to  the  South  American  revolution 
ists  unofficially  by  Great  Britain,  whose  merchants  gave  money 
and  many  of  whose  army  and  navy  officers  gave  their  services. 
In  1817,  General  San  Martin,  with  the  aid  of  the  illustrious  Dun- 
donald,  began  the  liberation  of  Chile  and  Peru.  Bolivar,  who 
had  dedicated  himself  to  the  cause  of  freedom  at  the  tomb  of 
Washington,  achieved  with  much  British  aid  the  independence 
of  the  northern  part  of  the  continent,  and  in  1821  Mexico  be 
came  an  independent  empire,  soon  to  be  transformed  into  a  re 
public.  In  the  early  years  of  these  movements,  the  relations  of 
South  America  were  far  more  intimate  with  Great  Britain  than 
with  the  United  States.  We  were  busy,  at  first  quarreling  with 
Great  Britain  and  France  and  later  dealing  with  Spain  in 
Florida,  while  Great  Britain,  seeking  to  maintain  and  extend  her 
trade,  was  playing  in  South  America  a  part  similar  to  that  of 


324  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

France  in  the  American  Revolution.  Nevertheless  the  revolu 
tions  at  the  south  did  not  pass  unnoticed.  In  1817,  being  done 
with  our  second  British  war,  Madison  sent  commissioners  to 
South  America  to  see  what  was  going  on  and  to  report  upon  the 
merits  and  prospects  of  the  case.  These  were  CaBsar  A.  Rodney 
of  Delaware,  John  Graham  of  Virginia,  and  Theodoric  Bland  of 
Virginia.  They  were  sent  specially  to  the  United  Provinces  of 
the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  afterward  the  Argentine  Confederation  and 
Argentine  Republic,  but  were  also  desired  to  report  so  far  as 
possible  upon  all  the  other  provinces.  Their  reports  were  not  at 
once  favorable  to  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the 
revolted  provinces,  though  they  indicated  that  fitness  for  recog 
nition  would  probably  be  attained  in  the  not  distant  future. 
Meantime  American  trade  was  pushing  its  way  into  the  ports 
of  those  countries  and  it  was  soon  considered  by  our  Govern 
ment,  early  in  Monroe's  administration,  necessary  to  send  com 
mercial  agents  thither  to  care  for  its  interests.  Between  1817 
and  1820  such  agents  were  sent  to  the  chief  States  of  South 
America,  and  in  addition  such  vessels  as  the  revolutionists  were 
able  to  send  hither  were  received  in  the  harbors  of  the  United 
States  and  were  permitted  to  enjoy  and  to  exercise  the  rights  of 
belligerents. 

Meantime  a  strong  cleavage  of  American  official  opinion  arose 
as  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by  our  Government.  Adams  fav 
ored  caution  and  delay.  He  had  no  love  for  Spain,  but  neither 
had  he  much  faith  in  the  self-governing  capacities  of  the  Span 
ish  colonies.  He  could  see  little  in  common  between  their  cause 
and  that  of  the  United  States,  and  he  doubted  the  right  or  the 
morality  of  our  aiding  in  any  way  revolutionists  who  disre 
garded  civil  rights  and  pursued  the  courses  of  pirates  and  free 
booters.  He  recalled  the  fact  that  the  miscreants  of  Galveston 
and  Amelia  Island  had  posed  as  South  American  patriots. 
Moreover,  he  was  intent  on  the  Florida  negotiations  with  Spain, 
and  he  felt  that  they  would  be  impeded  if  not  defeated  by  any 
marked  display  of  sympathy  with  the  South  American  revolu 
tionists.  He  even  seemed  inclined  to  act  in  the  matter  in  co 
operation  with  Great  Britain  and  other  European  powers,  thus 
contradicting  his  own  policy  in  respect  to  North  American  af 
fairs.  In  this  he  was  in  accord  with  Monroe,  who,  as  Madison 's 


OPENING  A  NEW  ERA  325 

secretary  of  state,  in  December,  1815,  had  written  to  Adams, 
then  minister  to  England,  as  follows: 

"The  Revolution  which  is  making  rapid  progress  in  South 
America  becomes  daily  more  interesting  to  the  United  States. 
From  the  best  information  that  we  can  obtain  there  is  much 
cause  to  believe  that  those  provinces  will  separate  from  the 
mother  country.  Several  of  them  have  already  abrogated  its 
authority,  and  established  independent  Governments.  They  in 
sist  on  the  acknowledgment  of  their  Governments  by  the  United 
States,  and  when  it  is  considered  that  the  alternative  is  between 
Governments,  which  in  the  event  of  their  independence  would 
be  free  and  friendly,  and  the  relation  which,  reasoning  from 
the  past,  must  be  expected  from  them,  as  colonies,  there  is  no 
cause  to  doubt  in  which  scale  our  interest  lies.  What  are  the 
views  and  intentions  of  the  British  government  on  this  important 
subject  ?  Is  it  not  to  the  interest  of  Great  Britain  that  the  Span 
ish  provinces  should  become  independent?  Will  her  Govern 
ment  promote  it,  at  what  time  and  under  what  circumstances? 
In  case  of  a  rupture  between  the  United  States  and  Spain  at  any 
future  time,  what  part  will  Great  Britain  take  in  the  contest, 
it  being  distinctly  to  be  understood  that  we  shall  ask,  in  regard 
to  the  Spanish  provinces,  no  privileges  in  trade  which  shall  not 
be  common  to  other  nations?  Spain  has  long  been  unfriendly 
to  the  United  States,  and  done  them  positive  injuries,  for  which 
reparation  has  been  withheld,  and  her  Government  still  assumes 
a  tone  which,  in  other  respects,  is  far  from  being  satisfactory. 
The  part  which  the  United  States  may  act  hereafter  towards  that 
power  must  depend  on  circumstances.  Should  the  Spanish  gov 
ernment  persevere  in  its  unjust  policy,  it  might  have  some  in 
fluence  on  our  measures,  and  it  would  be  advantageous  to  know 
the  views  of  the  British  government  in  these  respects." 

In  August,  1818,  as  Adams  recorded,  a  formal  proposal  was 
made  to  the  British  government  for  a  concerted  and  contempo 
rary  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Buenos  Aires,  then  the 
only  one  of  the  South  American  States  which,  having  declared 
independence,  had  no  Spanish  force  contending  against  it  within 
its  borders;  and  where  independence  therefore  most  unequivo 
cally  existed  in  fact.  The  British  government  declined  accept 
ing  the  proposal  themselves,  without  however  expressing  any  dis- 


326  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

approbation  of  it,  without  discussing  it  as  a  question  of  principle, 
and  without  assigning  any  reason  for  the  refusal,  other  than  that 
it  did  not  then  suit  with  their  policy. 

Henry  Clay,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  radical  advocate  of  im 
mediate  recognition.  This  was  partly  because  of  his  Western 
origin  and  training,  where  hatred  of  Spain  was  in  the  very  air. 
It  was  partly  because  of  his  impulsive  and  enthusiastic  disposi 
tion.  It  was  also  partly  because  of  his  enmity  toward  Monroe 
and  still  more  toward  Adams,  and  his  truculent  desire  to  oppose 
their  policies  and  embarrass  and  discredit  them.  In  May,  1818, 
he  made  in  the  House  of  Representatives  a  two  days'  speech  in 
which  he  exhausted  imagination  and  tore  all  passions  to  tatters 
in  an  appeal  for  recognition  of  the  South  American  republics. 
The  speech  was  redeemed  by  its  cogent  argument  for  the  estab 
lishment  of  an  American  system,  under  which  those  States  would 
be  drawn  into  the  sphere  of  influence  of  the  United  States  in 
diplomacy  and  commerce,  rather  than  that  of  Europe.  His 
motion  for  recognition  was  overwhelmingly  defeated,  but  his 
speech  produced  a  deep  and  lasting  impression,  upon  his  oppo 
nents  as  well  as  his  friends. 

For  two  years  the  matter  slumbered  and  then,  in  May,  1820, 
Clay  broke  forth  again  with  another  resolution  in  favor  of 
recognizing  the  South  American  States  and  sending  ministers 
to  them.  This  resolution  he  supported  in  a  speech  less  flamboy 
ant  than  its  predecessor  but  on  the  whole  more  forcible  and 
statesmanlike.  It  was  savagely  severe  toward  Adams,  whom  he 
charged  with  subserviency  to  Great  Britain.  Indeed,  he  made 
that  accusation  against  Monroe  himself.  He  urged  again  the 
establishment  of  an  American  system  which  should  counteract 
and  oppose  the  despotic  system  of  Europe  and  should  organize 
and  array  the  New  World  against  the  Old.  "We  look,"  he  said, 
"too  much  abroad.  Let  us  break  these  commercial  and  political 
fetters.  Let  us  no  longer  watch  the  nod  of  any  European  poli 
tician.  Let  us  become  real  and  true  Americans,  and  place  our 
selves  at  the  head  of  the  American  system."  The  ostensible 
purport  of  this  was  unquestionably  correct.  It  was  the  true 
American  policy,  which  was  presently  adopted,  and  which  has 
since  been  consistently  maintained.  The  error  in  it  was  that 
Clay  was  moved  too  much  by  personal  jealousy  and  spite,  and 


OPENING  A  NEW  EKA  327 

by  factional  rancor,  and  that  he  was  thus  led  into  gross  exag 
geration  of  the  attitude  of  the  administration.  To  charge  either 
Adams  or  Monroe  with  truckling  to  British  or  European  influ 
ences,  was  simply  absurd. 

Clay  had,  however,  the  popular  ear  and  his  glowing  eloquence 
was  powerful  in  its  appeal.  This  time  his  resolution  was 
adopted  by  the  House  by  a  considerable  majority,  although  he 
was  not  able  to  get  it  through  the  Senate.  In  February,  1821, 
he  made  another  appeal  to  the  House  and  secured  the  almost 
unanimous  adoption  of  a  resolution  of  sympathy  with  the  revo 
lutionists,  and  of  another  pledging  the  House  to  support  the 
President  in  recognizing  the  new  republics  whenever  he  should 
consider  such  action  expedient.  This  latter  resolution  was  laid 
before  Monroe  by  a  committee  of  which  Clay  was  the  chairman, 
and  the  expectation  was  that  it  would  move  him  in  his  forthcom 
ing  second  inaugural  address,  on  March  4,  1821,  to  declare  for 
immediate  recognition.  The  President's  hand  was  not,  however, 
thus  to  be  forced. 

In  his  second  inaugural  address  he  referred  to  the  South 
American  revolution  in  cautious  and  tentative  terms,  urging  that 
the  United  States  should  maintain  scrupulous  neutrality  between 
Spain  and  her  rebellious  colonies.  In  the  following  December 
he  referred  to  the  subject  in  similar  tones  in  his  message  to  Con 
gress.  But  in  March,  1822,  with  the  Florida  treaty  signed  and 
that  territory  fully  in  our  possession,  an  important  change  in 
his  attitude  was  made.  He  sent  to  Congress  a  special  message 
on  the  subject,  in  which  he  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  South 
American  colonies  had  in  fact  secured  their  independence,  and 
that  they  were  certain  to  retain  it.  Recognition  of  that  fact 
should,  he  said,  therefore  be  made  by  the  United  States.  Such 
action,  in  view  of  existing  circumstances,  could  not  be  regarded 
by  Spain  as  improper,  and  it  would  probably  have  the  beneficent 
effect  of  shortening  the  struggle  and  restoring  peace  to  the  south 
ern  continent.  He  therefore  asked  for  an  appropriation  to  de 
fray  the  cost  of  sending  ministers  to  the  new  republics.  Con 
gress  promptly  responded.  On  March  19,  1822,  the  house  com 
mittee  on  foreign  affairs  presented  a  unanimous  report,  in  which, 
after  reviewing  the  facts  and  expressing  the  opinion  that  "it  is 
just  and  expedient  to  acknowledge  the  independence  of  the  sev- 


328  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

eral  nations  of  Spanish  America,  without  any  reference  to  the 
diversity  in  the  forms  of  their  Governments,"  it  proposed  that 
the  House  ' '  concur  in  the  opinion  expressed  by  the  President  in 
his  message  of  the  8th  of  March,  1822,  that  the  American  prov 
inces  of  Spain,  which  have  declared  their  independence  and  are 
in  the  enjoyment  of  it,  ought  to  be  recognized  by  the  United 
States  as  independent  nations, ' '  and  that  the  committee  on  ways 
and  means  be  instructed  to  report  a  bill  appropriating  not  more 
than  $100,000  "to  enable  the  President  of  the  United  States  to 
give  due  effect  to  such  recognition. ' ' 

On  May  4,  1822,  an  act  was  approved  entitled  "An  act  mak 
ing  an  appropriation  to  defray  the  expenses  of  missions  to  the 
independent  nations  of  the  American  continent."  By  this  act 
the  sum  of  $100,000  was  appropriated  "for  such  missions  to  the 
independent  nations  of  the  American  continent  as  the  President 
of  the  United  States  may  deem  proper."  In  June  following 
Manuel  Torres  was  received  as  charge  d'affaires  of  Colombia. 
On  January  27,  1823,  Cassar  A.  Rodney  of  Delaware  was  com 
missioned  as  minister  to  the  Argentine  Confederation;  Herman 
Allen  of  Vermont  to  Chile,  and  Richard  C.  Anderson  of  Ken 
tucky  to  Colombia,  which  then  comprised  Venezuela  and 
Ecuador.  In  1825,  Condy  Raquet  of  Pennsylvania  was  sent  to 
Brazil,  John  Williams  of  Tennessee  to  the  Central  American 
States,  and  Joel  R.  Poinsett  of  South  Carolina  to  Mexico;  and 
in  1826,  James  Cooley  of  Pennsylvania  was  sent  as  minister  to 
Peru. 


JAMES  MONROE 


XII 

THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE 

THE  title  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  in  some  respects  a  mis 
nomer.  The  impression  is  given  by  it  that  that  fun 
damental  principle  of  American  foreign  policy  originated  with 
President  Monroe.  That,  however,  is  a  grievous  error.  Monroe 
did  indeed  proclaim  it  to  the  world  in  his  annual  message  to 
Congress  in  December,  1823,  and  despite  some  pretensions  to  the 
contrary  it  was  probably  he  who  gave  it  its  verbal  form.  But 
the  principle  had  long  been  in  existence,  developing  and 
strengthening,  and  it  had  received  expression  from  various  men 
on  various  occasions.  Hamilton  forecast  it,  in  the  Congress  of 
the  old  Confederation,  and  in  "The  Federalist/'  when  he  wrote 
that  "our  situation  invites  and  prompts  us  to  aim  at  an  ascend 
ant  in  American  affairs,"  and  when  he  advocated  giving  aid  to 
South  America  in  throwing  off  Spanish  rule  and  establishing  in 
dependent  republics;  so  that  these  two  continents  should  form 
a  political  system  of  their  own,  independent  of  that  of  Europe. 
Jefferson,  in  1793,  writing  as  secretary  of  state  to  Carmichael 
and  Short,  our  ministers  to  Spain,  made  application  of  the  same 
general  theory.  Washington,  in  his  Farewell  Address,  expressed 
it  in  much  detail,  dwelling  upon  the  radical  difference  between 
European  and  American  interests.  In  relation  to  Louisiana,  to 
Florida,  and  to  Cuba,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  repeated  in  various 
ways  and  phases.  It  reappeared  in  terse  and  vigorous  words 
in  Adams's  warning  to  the  Russian  minister,  Baron  Tuyll.  For 
thirty-odd  years  it  had  been  growing  into  shape  and  substance, 
and  it  needed  only  an  urgent  occasion  to  be  crystallized  into  the 
imperious  form  of  a  national  decree. 

That  occasion  was  provided  by  the  European  powers,  in  their 
last  vain  and  fatuous  attempt  to  reduce  America  to  a  state  of 
political  vassalage.  We  have  already  seen  how  much  this  coun 
try  suffered  from  the  intrigues  and  wars  of  the  Napoleonic  era. 

329 


330  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

At  the  conclusion  of  that  era  a  final  effort  was  made  to  subject 
America  perpetually  to  that  bondage  and  torment.  In  that  the 
initiative  was  taken  by  Alexander  I  of  Russia,  a  visionary  bigot, 
seconded  by  Francis  of  Austria  and  Frederick  William  of 
Prussia.  These  monarchs  regarded  the  disturbances  which  had 
kept  Europe  in  an  uproar  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  had 
menaced  the  security  of  their  own  thrones,  as  the  direct  results 
of  democratic  meddling  with  the  divine  right  of  kings,  and  they 
determined  so  far  as  in  them  lay  to  prevent  any  further  such 
manifestations  of  impiety  and  sacrilege.  Accordingly  at  Paris, 
on  September  26,  1815,  they  made  a  compact,  which  has  ever 
since  been  called  the  Holy  Alliance,  the  object  of  which  was  to 
administer  government,  both  domestic  and  foreign,  on  a  basis  of 
justice,  charity,  and  peace,  "in  accordance  with  the  precepts  of 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ";  to  which  end,  "looking  upon 
themselves  as  delegated  by  Providence"  to  rule  their  respective 
countries,  and  to  seek  the  happiness  and  religious  welfare  of  their 
subjects,  they  pledged  each  other  their  aid  and  support  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places.  ' '  The  sole  principle  of  force, ' '  they  said, 
"whether  between  the  said  Governments  or  between  their  sub 
jects,  shall  be  that  of  doing  each  other  reciprocal  service,  and  of 
testifying  the  mutual  good  will  with  which  they  ought  to  be  ani 
mated,  to  consider  themselves  all  as  members  of  one  and  the 
same  Christian  nation."  They  also  agreed  to  invite  all  other 
sovereigns  to  join  them  in  these  counsels  of  perfection.  This, 
on  the  face  of  it,  was  a  pious  undertaking,  well  worthy  of  the 
pretentious  name  which  has  been  given  to  it,  and  not  at  all  de 
serving  of  John  Quincy  Adams's  scathing  description  of  it  as 
"a  hypocritical  fraud,"  or  of  Castlereagh 's  as  "sublime  mys 
ticism  and  nonsense." 

But  it  did  not  maintain  that  face.  Another  meeting  was  held 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  in  October,  1818,  which  was  participated  in 
by  the  three  powers  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  by  Great  Britain, 
which  had  informally  joined  them,  and  also  by  France.  Its  first 
purpose  was  to  provide  for  the  evacuation  of  France  by  the  allied 
armies.  Then  was  taken  up  the  general  question  of  the  protec 
tion  of  Europe  against  further  revolutionary  outbreaks.  The 
Russian  emperor,  who  was  present  in  person,  urged  '  *  a  universal 
union  of  guarantee"  on  the  basis  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  which 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  331 

should  maintain  all  " legitimate ' '  sovereigns  on  their  thrones; 
and  incidentally  should  force  all  revolted  provinces  back  under 
their  former  rulers.  Castlereagh,  on  behalf  of  England,  stub 
bornly  opposed  this  and  the  proposal  was  dropped  after  much 
debate.  There  was  adopted,  however,  an  agreement  of  the  pow 
ers  to  maintain  their  intimate  union  "  strengthened  by  the  ties 
of  Christian  brotherhood,"  and  thus  to  preserve  peace  through 
the  respect  of  treaties.  Numerous  matters  of  European  interest 
were  acted  upon,  and  the  meeting  marked  the  highest  point  ever 
reached  in  the  effort  to  govern  Europe  through  a  congress  of 
the  powers.  What  concerns  present  consideration  most  is  the 
part  which  American  affairs  indirectly  played,  in  causing  the 
British  envoy  to  resist  and  to  defeat  the  Russian  proposal  of  a 
universal  guarantee  of  "legitimate"  sovereignty.  A  year  be 
fore,  Great  Britain  had  warned  the  other  members  of  the  Holy 
Alliance  that  she  would  not  assist  in  forcing  the  revolted  Spanish 
colonies  back  under  King  Ferdinand's  rule.  It  was  on  that 
ground  that  Castlereagh  opposed  the  czar's  proposal.  Ferdi 
nand  had  appealed  to  the  congress  for  aid  in  resubjugating  South 
America.  Russia  and  France  were  for  aiding  him,  at  least  to 
the  extent  of  having  England  mediate  between  him  and  his  re 
volted  subjects.  This  appeal  of  Spain's  was  known  to  Monroe, 
who  in  a  message  to  Congress  in  November,  1818,  shrewdly  pre 
dicted  that  while  the  allies  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  might  express 
sentiments  favorable  to  Ferdinand,  they  would  not  employ  force. 
What  took  place  was  accurately  related  by  John  Quincy  Adams 
in  a  letter  to  Smith  Thompson,  the  secretary  of  the  navy,  on  May 
20,  1819,  as  follows: 

"It  is  now  well  ascertained  that,  before  the  congress  of  the 
great  European  powers  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  their  mediation  had 
been  solicited  by  Spain,  and  agreed  to  be  given  by  them  for  the 
purpose  of  restoring  the  Spanish  dominion  throughout  South 
America,  under  certain  conditions  of  commercial  privileges  to  be 
guaranteed  to  the  inhabitants.  The  Government  of  the  United 
States  had  been  informed  of  this  project  before  the  meeting  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  that  it  had  been  proposed  by  some  of  the 
allied  powers  that  the  United  States  should  be  invited  to  join 
them  in  this  mediation.  When  this  information  was  received, 
the  ministers  of  the  United  States  to  France,  England,  and  Rus- 


332  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

sia  were  immediately  instructed  to  make  known  to  those  respec 
tive  Governments  that  the  United  States  would  take  no  part  in 
any  plan  of  mediation  or  interference  in  the  contest  between 
Spain  and  South  America,  which  should  be  founded  on  any 
other  basis  than  that  of  the  total  independence  of  the  colonies. 
"This  declaration  was  communicated  before  the  meeting  to 
Lord  Castlereagh,  and  to  the  Duke  of  Richelieu  at  the  congress. 
It  occasioned  some  dissatisfaction  to  the  principal  allies,  particu 
larly  France  and  Russia,  as  it  undoubtedly  disconcerted  their 
proposed  mediation.  Great  Britain,  concurring  with  them  in 
the  plan  of  restoring  the  Spanish  authority  but  aware  that  it 
could  not  be  carried  into  effect  without  the  concurrence  of  the 
United  States,  declared  it  an  indispensable  condition  to  her 
participation  in  the  mediation  that  there  should  be  no  resort  to 
force  against  the  South  Americans,  whatever  the  result  of  the 
mediation  might  be.  To  this  condition,  France  and  Russia 
after  some  hesitation  assented.  But  they  proposed  that,  if  the 
South  Americans  should  reject  the  terms  of  accommodation  to  be 
offered  them  with  the  sanction  of  the  mediating  powers,  they 
should  prohibit  all  commercial  intercourse  of  their  subjects  re 
spectively  with  them.  ((To  this  condition  Great  Britain  declined 
giving  her  assent;  her  motive  for  which  is  sufficiently  obvious, 
when  it  is  considered  that,  after  the  declaration  of  the  United 
States,  the  practical  operation  of  such  a  nonintercourse  between 
the  allies  and  the  South  Americans  would  have  been  to  transfer 
to  the  United  States  the  whole  of  the  valuable  conimerce  carried 
on  with  them  by  the  merchants  of  Great  Britain.  )  As  a  last  ex 
pedient  it  was  proposed  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  should  be 
sent  to  Madrid  with  the  joint  powers  of  all  the  allied  sovereigns, 
to  arrange  with  the  Spanish  cabinet  the  terms  to  be  offered  to 
the  South  Americans,  which  was  again  defeated  by  the  duke's 
insisting  that,  if  he  should  go,  a  previous  entry  should  be  made 
upon  the  protocol  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  that  no  force  against  the 
South  Americans  was,  in  any  result  of  his  embassy,  to  be  used. 
But  Spain  had  always  connected  with  the  project  of  the  media 
tion  a  demand  that  the  allies  should  ultimately  guarantee  the 
restoration  of  her  authority ;  and,  finding  that  this  was  not  to  be 
obtained,  she  declined  accepting  the  interposition  upon  any  other 
terms. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  333 

"But  while  the  Government  of  the  United  States  have  thus 
taken  every  occasion  offered  them  in  the  course  of  events  to  mani 
fest  their  good  wishes  in  favor  of  the  South  Americans,  they 
have  never  lost  sight  of  the  obligations  incumbent  on  them,  as 
avowedly  neutral  to  the  contest  between  them  and  Spain." 

This  failure  at  Aix-la-Chapelle  did  not,  however,  discourage 
the  allies,  or  at  any  rate  the  czar,  from  the  scheme  of  resubjugat- 
ing  South  America.  The  czar  provided  Ferdinand  with  the  nec 
essary  ships  for  a  great  expedition,  which  was  to  sail  from  Cadiz 
for  America  at  the  end  of  1819  or  the  beginning  of  1820.  But 
on  New  Year's  day,  1820,  a  part  of  the  army  mutinied,  revolu 
tion  became  rampant,  and,  early  in  March,  Ferdinand  was  com 
pelled  to  take  oath  to  support  the  radical  constitution  of  1812. 
Portugal  and  Naples  followed  with  similar  revolutions,  and  the 
principles  of  the  Holy  Alliance  were  flouted.  The  czar  was 
quick  to  move  for  vindication  of  "legitimacy,"  and  wished  to 
intervene  in  Spain.  Austria  and  Prussia  agreed  that  action 
ought  to  be  taken.  But  again  Great  Britain  opposed  such  reac 
tionary  meddling.  The  result  was  the  calling  of  another  confer 
ence  at  Troppau,  at  which  the  five  powers  of  Aix-la-Chapelle 
were  present,  but  most  of  the  business  was  done  by  the  three 
original  holy  allies  in  secret  sessions.  These  powers  on  Novem 
ber  19.  1820,  adopted  resolutions  practically  identical  with  those 
which  Castlereagh  had  defeated  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  pledging 
themselves  to  support,  by  force  of  arms,  princes  against  their 
insurgent  subjects.  Later,  on  December  8,  a  public  declaration 
was  made  by  the  three  powers,  concerning  the  measures,  "pacific 
or  coercive,"  which  might  be  employed  to  force  all  States  under 
the  system  of  the  alliance.  This  was  a  direct  challenge  to  Great 
Britain,  to  which  prompt  reply  was  made  in  reaifirmation  of  her 
former  stand.  In  January,  1821,  the  congress  met  again  at  Lai- 
bach,  and  agreed  upon  the  principle  of  armed  intervention  in 
the  affairs  of  nations  which  did  not  conduct  themselves  to  the 
liking  of  the  allied  powers.  They  also  explicitly  denounced  as 
null,  and  disallowed  by  the  public  law  of  Europe,  any  pretended 
reform  effected  by  revolt  and  open  force.  In  1822  the  congress 
met  at  Verona,  and  authorized  France  to  invade  Spain,  to  abol 
ish  the  constitution  and  to  reestablish  the  old  Bourbon  despotism ; 
promising  the  aid  of  other  powers  if  needed.  Canning  was  now 


334  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

at  the  head  of  affairs  in  Great  Britain,  and  he  strongly  disap 
proved  such  coercion  of  Spain.  He  accordingly  directed  the 
British  envoy  at  Verona,  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  to  oppose  the 
resolution  to  the  bitter  end;  which  was  done,  but  in  vain.  In 
tervention  in  Spain  was  thus  decided  upon  in  spite  of  England's 
opposition,  and  it  was  made  quite  clear  that  if  it  were  successful 
it  would,  if  possible,  be  extended  to  the  Spanish  colonies  in 
America.  The  Russian  minister  of  state,  Count  Nesselrode,  in 
a  letter  to  the  Russian  charge  d'affaires  at  Madrid,  specifically 
ascribed  the  revolution  in  the  colonies  to  the  success  of  the  revolt 
at  Madrid,  and  declared  that  all  Europe  had  offered  to  the  King 
of  Spain  intervention  for  the  reestablishment  of  his  authority 
in  those  colonies.  Nesselrode  also  addressed  to  the  envoys  of  the 
three  holy  alliance  powers  at  Verona  a  despatch  to  similar  ef 
fect.  Incidentally  it  may  be  added  that  the  Verona  congress 
adopted  an  agreement  "to  put  an  end  to  the  system  of  represen 
tative  governments, ' '  and  to  adopt  measures  to  suppress  the  lib 
erty  of  the  press.  These  measures  were  applicable,  of  course, 
only  to  European  countries ;  but  that  phrase  was  interpreted  as 
comprising  the  colonies  of  European  powers  in  whatever  part 
of  the  world. 

Powerless  to  prevent  the  congress  from  adopting  this  course, 
Canning  essayed  a  counterblast  by  directing  Wellington  to  raise 
the  question  of  recognizing  the  independence  of  the  South 
American  republics.  This  raised  a  storm.  All  the  other  powers 
protested.  The  Emperor  of  Austria  declared  that  he  would 
never  give  such  recognition  until  the  King  of  Spain  himself  had 
done  so,  while  Russia  and  Prussia  clung  to  the  hope  of  a  restora 
tion  of  the  rebel  States  to  Spanish  allegiance.  Wellington  was 
resolute,  however,  and  it  soon  became  clear  that  Great  Britain 
would  act  on  her  own  initiative  in  dealing  with  the  South 
American  republics,  without  regard  to  the  congress.  In  the 
spring  of  1823  the  French  invasion  of  Spain  occurred,  and  Great 
Britain  announced  that  she  would  remain  neutral  only  on  the 
condition  that  France 's  meddling  did  not  extend  to  any  of  the  se 
ceding  Spanish  colonies.  Finally,  in  October  of  that  year,  Can 
ning  informed  the  French  ambassador  in  London  that  while  the 
British  government  would  remain  neutral  as  between  Spain  and 
her  American  colonies,  "the  junction  of  any  foreign  power  in  an 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  335 

enterprise  of  Spain  against  the  colonies  would  be  viewed  by  them 
as  constituting  an  entirely  new  question,  and  one  upon  which 
they  must  take  such  decision  as  the  interests  of  Great  Britain 
might  require. " 

Realizing  thus  his  complete  separation  from  the  continental 
alliance,  and  realizing,  also,  its  antagonism  to  British  principles 
and  British  interests,  Canning  turned  to  America.  In  August, 
1823,  he  had  a  long  interview  with  Rush,  the  American  minister, 
in  which  Rush  expressed  satisfaction  in  the  belief  that  even  if 
France  intervened  in  Spain,  Great  Britain  would  restrain  her 
from  meddling  with  the  Spanish  colonies.  Canning  replied 
with  a  suggestion  that  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  be 
cause  of  their  large  common  maritime  interests  and  great  naval 
power,  ought  to  cooperate  to  that  end.  A  few  days  later,  on 
August  20,  Canning  wrote  to  Rush  as  follows: 

"Is  not  the  moment  come  when  our  Governments  might  un 
derstand  each  other  as  to  the  Spanish- American  colonies?  And 
if  we  can  arrive  at  such  an  understanding,  would  it  not  be 
expedient  for  ourselves,  and  beneficial  for  all  the  world,  that  the 
principles  of  it  should  be  clearly  settled  and  plainly  avowed? 
For  ourselves  we  have  no  disguise. 

"1.  We  conceive  the  recovery  of  the  colonies  by  Spain  to 
be  hopeless. 

"2.  We  conceive  the  question  of  the  recognition  of  them,  as 
independent  States,  to  be  one  of  time  and  circumstances. 

"3.  We  are,  however,  by  no  means  disposed  to  throw  any 
impediment  in  the  way  of  an  arrangement  between  them  and 
the  mother  country  by  amicable  negotiation. 

"4.  We  aim  not  at  the  possession  of  any  portion  of  them  our 
selves. 

"5.  We  could  not  see  any  portion  of  them  transferred  to  any 
other  power  with  indifference. 

"If  these  opinions  and  feelings  are,  as  I  firmly  believe  them  to 
be,  common  to  your  Government  with  ours,  why  should  we  hesi 
tate  mutually  to  confide  them  to  each  other,  and  to  declare  them 
in  the  face  of  the  worlcT?  If  there  be  any  European  power 
which  cherishes  other  projects,  which  looks  to  a  forcible  enter 
prise  for  reducing  the  colonies  to  subjugation,  on  the  behalf  or 
in  the  name  of  Spain,  or  which  meditates  the  acquisition  of  any 


336  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

part  of  them  to  itself,  by  cession  or  by  conquest,  such  a  declara 
tion  on  the  part  of  your  Government  and  ours  would  be  at  once 
the  most  effectual  and  ^he  least  offensive  mode  of  intimating  our 
joint  disapprobation  of  such  projects.  It  would  at  the  same 
time  put  an  end  to  all  the  jealousies  of  Spain  with  respect  to  her 
remaining  colonies,  and  to  the  agitation  which  prevails  in  those 
colonies,  an  agitation  which  it  would  be  but  humane  to  allay, 
being  determined  (as  we  are)  not  to  profit  by  encouraging  it. 

"Do  you  conceive  that,  under  the  power  which  you  have  re 
cently  received,  you  are  authorized  to  enter  into  negotiation,  and 
to  sign  any  convention  upon  this  subject?  Do  you  conceive,  if 
that  be  not  within  your  competence,  you  could  exchange  with 
me  ministerial  notes  upon  it?  Nothing  could  be  more  gratify 
ing  to  me  than  to  join  with  you  in  such  a  work,  and  I  am  per 
suaded  there  has  seldom,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  occurred 
an  opportunity  when  so  small  an  effort  of  two  friendly  Govern 
ments  might  produce  so  unequivocal  a  good,  and  prevent  such 
extensive  calamities. ' ' 

To  this  Rush  replied  three  days  later.  He  seems  to  have 
thought,  in  the  previous  interview,  that  Canning,  if  not  insin 
cere,  was  at  least  not  frankly  disclosing  his  real  purpose,  which, 
Rush  suspected,  was  not  so  much  to  befriend  South  America  as 
to  thwart  France  and  to  promote  British  commercial  and  politi 
cal  interests,  and  he  had  then  sought  to  get  Canning  to  com 
mit  himself  to  immediate  recognition  of  the  republics,  undiplo 
matically  regardless  of  European  considerations  which  might 
make  that  course  inexpedient.  But  in  his  correspondence  he 
showed  little  if  any  distrust.  He  wrote: 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States,  having,  in  the  most 
formal  manner,  acknowledged  the  independence  of  the  late 
Spanish  provinces  in  America,  desires  nothing  more  anxiously 
than  to  see  this  independence  maintained  with  stability,  and 
under  auspices  that  may  promise  prosperity  and  happiness  to 
these  new  States  themselves,  as  well  as  advantage  to  the  rest  of 
the  world.  As  conducing  to  these  great  ends,  my  Government 
has  always  desired,  and  still  desires,  to  see  them  received  into 
the  family  of  nations  by  the  powers  of  Europe,  and  especially, 
I  may  add,  by  Great  Britain. 

"My  Government  is  also  under  a  sincere  conviction  that  the 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  337 

epoch  has  arrived  when  the  interests  of  humanity  and  justice, 
as  well  as  all  other  interests,  would  be  essentially  subserved  by 
the  general  recognition  of  these  States. 

"  Making  these  remarks,  I  believe  I  may  confidently  say  that 
the  sentiments  unfolded  in  your  note  are  fully  those  which  be 
long  also  to  my  Government. 

1 '  It  conceives  the  recovery  of  the  colonies  by  Spain  to  be  hope 
less. 

"It  would  throw  no  impediment  in  the  way  of  an  arrange 
ment  between  them  and  the  mother  country,  by  amicable  nego 
tiation,  supposing  an  arrangement  of  this  nature  to  be  possible. 

* '  It  does  not  aim  at  the  possession  of  any  portion  of  those  com 
munities  for  or  on  behalf  of  the  United  States. 

"It  would  regard  as  highly  unjust  and  fruitful  of  disastrous 
consequences  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  any  European  power 
to  take  possession  of  them  by  conquest  or  by  cession,  or  on  any 
ground  or  pretext  whatever. 

"But  in  what  manner  my  Government  might  deem  it  expedi 
ent  to  avow  these  principles  and  feelings,  or  express  its  disap 
probation  of  such  projects  as  the  last,  are  points  which  none 
of  my  instructions,  or  the  power  which  I  have  recently  received, 
embrace ;  and  they  involve,  I  am  forced  to  add,  considerations  of 
too  much  delicacy  for  me  to  act  upon  them  in  advance.  It  will 
yield  me  particular  pleasure  to  be  the  organ  of  promptly  causing 
to  be  brought  under  the  notice  of  the  President  the  opinions  and 
views  of  which  you  have  made  me  the  depositary  upon  this  sub 
ject,  and  I  am  of  nothing  more  sure  than  that  he  will  fully  ap 
preciate  their  intrinsic  interest,  and  not  less  the  frank  and 
friendly  feelings  towards  the  United  States  in  which  they  have 
been  conceived  and  communicated  to  me  on  your  part.  Nor  do 
I  take  too  much  upon  myself  when  I  anticipate  the  peculiar  satis 
faction  the  President  will  also  derive  from  the  intimation  which 
you  have  not  scrupled  to  afford  me  as  to  the  just  and  liberal  de 
terminations  of  his  Majesty's  government  in  regard  to  the  colo 
nies  which  still  remain  to  Spain.'* 

In  transmitting  copies  of  this  correspondence  to  Adams  at 
Washington,  Rush  expressed  his  sense  of  British  sincerity,  and 
of  the  serious  importance  of  the  matter,  as  follows: 

' '  The  tone  of  earnestness  in  Mr.  Canning 's  note,  and  the  force 

VOL.  1—22 


338  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  some  of  his  expressions,  naturally  start  the  inference  that  the 
British  cabinet  cannot  be  without  its  serious  apprehensions  that 
ambitious  enterprises  are  meditated  against  the  independence  of 
the  South  American  states.  Whether  by  France  alone  I  cannot 
now  say  on  any  authentic  grounds. ' ' 

On  the  same  day  on  which  Rush  wrote  to  Canning,  as  above, 
Canning  wrote  to  Rush  a  brief  note  as  follows: 

"  Since  I  wrote  you  on  the  20th,  an  additional  motive  has  oc 
curred  for  wishing  that  we  might  be  able  to  come  to  some  un 
derstanding  on  the  part  of  our  respective  Governments  on  the 
subject  of  my  letter;  to  come  to  it  soon,  and  to  be  at  liberty  to 
announce  it  to  the  world. 

"It  is  this.  I  have  received  notice — but  not  such  a  notice  as 
imposes  upon  me  the  necessity  of  any  immediate  answer  or  pro 
ceeding — that  as  soon  as  the  military  objects  in  Spain  are 
achieved  (of  which  the  French  expect,  how  justly  I  know  not, 
a  very  speedy  achievement)  a  proposal  will  be  made  for  a  con 
gress,  or  some  less  formal  concert  and  consultation,  especially 
upon  the  affairs  of  South  America.  I  need  not  point  out  to 
you  all  the  complications  to  which  this  proposal,  however  dealt 
with  by  us,  may  lead." 

Those  were  days  of  slow  communications  across  the  Atlantic, 
and  Canning  realized  that  weeks  must  elapse  before  any  word 
could  be  received  from  Washington.  Such  delay  might  prove 
disastrous.  So  he  decided  to  act  alone,  without  waiting  for  an 
opportunity  to  make  a  joint  or  identical  declaration  with  the 
United  States.  On  October  9  he  informed  the  French  ambassa 
dor: 

"That  the  British  Government  were  of  opinion  that  any  at 
tempt  to  bring  Spanish  America  again  under  its  ancient  submis 
sion  to  Spain  must  be  utterly  hopeless;  that  all  negotiations  for 
that  purpose  would  be  unsuccessful,  and  that  the  prolongation 
or  renewal  of  war  for  the  same  object  would  be  only  a  waste  of 
human  life,  and  an  infliction  of  calamity  on  both  parties  to  no 
end. 

"That  the  British  Government  would,  however,  not  only  ab 
stain  from  interposing  any  obstacle,  on  their  part,  to  any  at 
tempt  at  negotiation  which  Spain  might  think  proper  to  make, 
but  would  aid  and  countenance  such  negotiation,  provided  it 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  339 

were  founded  upon  a  basis  which  appeared  to  them  to  be  prac 
ticable,  and  that  they  would  in  any  case  remain  strictly  neutral 
in  a  war  between  Spain  and  the  colonies,  if  war  should  be  un 
happily  prolonged. 

"But  that  the  junction  of  any  foreign  power  in  an  enterprise 
of  Spain  against  the  colonies  would  be  viewed  by  them  as  con 
stituting  an  entirely  new  question,  and  one  upon  which  they 
must  take  such  decision  as  the  interests  of  Great  Britain  might 
require.  .  .  . 

"That,  completely  convinced  that  the  ancient  system  of  the 
colonies  could  not  be  restored,  the  British  Government  could  not 
enter  into  any  stipulation  binding  itself  either  to  refuse  or  to 
delay  its  recognition  of  their  independence. 

"That  the  British  Government  had  no  desire  to  precipitate 
that  recognition  so  long  as  there  was  any  reasonable  chance  of 
an  accommodation  with  the  mother  country  by  which  such  a 
recognfaon  might  come  first  from  Spain. 

"But  that  it  could  not  wait  indefinitely  for  that  result,  that 
it  could  not  consent  to  make  its  recognition  of  the  new  States  de 
pendent  upon  that  of  Spain ;  and  that  it  would  consider  any  for 
eign  interference,  by  force  or  by  menace,  in  the  dispute  between 
Spain  and  the  colonies,  as  a  motive  for  recognizing  the  latter 
without  delay. " 

It  may  here  be  added  that  on  January  30,  1824,  Canning  in 
structed  the  British  ambassador  at  Madrid  to  explain  the  rea 
sons  of  Great  Britain  for  refusing  to  enter  into  the  proposed 
conference  of  European  powers  at  Paris.  Great  Britain,  he 
said,  would  prefer  Spain  *  *  to  have  the  grace  and  the  advantage ' ' 
of  leading  the  way  in  recognizing  the  new  States;  but  recogni 
tion  could  not  in  any  case  be  much  longer  postponed. 

The  correspondence  between  Rush  and  Canning  was  received 
by  Monroe  in  October,  1823,  and  was  promptly  referred  to  Jef 
ferson,  for  consideration  and  advice.  "My  own  impression," 
said  Monroe,  "is  that  we  ought  to  meet  the  proposal  of  the 
British  government,  and  to  make  it  known,  that  we  would  view 
an  interference  on  the  part  of  the  European  powers,  and  espe 
cially  an  attack  on  the  colonies  by  them,  as  an  attack  on  ourselves, 
presuming  that  if  they  succeeded  with  them  they  would  extend  it 
to  us."  To  this  Jefferson  replied  as  follows: 


340  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

"The  question  presented  by  the  letters  you  have  sent  me  is 
the  most  momentous  which  has  ever  been  offered  to  my  contem 
plation  since  that  of  independence.  That  made  us  a  nation; 
this  sets  our  compass  and  points  the  course  which  we  are  to  steer 
through  the  ocean  of  time  opening  on  us.  And  never  could  we 
embark  upon  it  under  circumstances  more  auspicious.  Our  first 
and  fundamental  maxim  should  be,  never  to  entangle  ourselves 
in  the  broils  of  Europe;  our  second,  never  to  suffer  Europe  to 
intermeddle  with  cis-Atlantic  affairs.  America,  North  and 
South,  has  a  set  of  interests  distinct  from  those  of  Europe,  and 
particularly  her  own.  She  should  therefore  have  a  system  of 
her  own,  separate  and  apart  from  that  of  Europe.  While  the 
last  is  laboring  to  become  the  domicile  of  despotism,  our  endeavor 
should  surely  be  to  make  our  hemisphere  that  of  freedom. 

''One  nation,  most  of  all,  could  disturb  us  in  this  pursuit; 
she  now  offers  to  lead,  aid,  and  accompany  us  in  it.  By  acced 
ing  to  her  proposition,  we  detach  her  from  the  bands,  bring  her 
mighty  weight  into  the  scale  of  free  government,  and  emancipate 
a  continent  at  one  stroke,  which  might  otherwise  linger  long  in 
doubt  and  difficulty.  Great  Britain  is  the  nation  which  can  do 
us  the  most  harm  of  any  one  or  all  on  earth;  and  with  her  on 
our  side  we  need  not  fear  the  whole  world.  With  her,  then,  we 
should  most  sedulously  cherish  a  cordial  friendship;  and  noth 
ing  would  tend  more  to  knit  our  affections  than  to  be  fighting 
once  more,  side  by  side,  in  the  same  cause.  Not  that  I  would 
purchase  even  her  amity  at  the  price  of  taking  part  in  her  wars. 

"But  the  war  in  which  the  present  proposition  might  engage 
us,  should  that  be  its  consequence,  is  not  her  war,  but  ours.  Its 
object  is  to  introduce  and  establish  the  American  system,  of 
keeping  out  of  our  land  all  foreign  powers — of  never  permitting 
those  of  Europe  to  intermeddle  with  the  affairs  of  our  nations. 
It  is  to  maintain  our  own  principle,  not  to  depart  from  it. 
And  if,  to  facilitate  this,  we  can  effect  a  division  in  the  body 
of  the  European  powers,  and  draw  over  to  our  side  its  most  pow 
erful  member,  surely  we  should  do  it.  But  I  am  clearly  of  Mr. 
Canning's  opinion,  that  it  will  prevent  instead  of  provoking 
war.  With  Great  Britain  withdrawn  from  their  scale  and 
shifted  into  that  of  our  two  continents,  all  Europe  combined 
would  not  undertake  such  a  war,  for  how  would  they  propose 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  341 

to  get  at  either  enemy  without  superior  fleets?  Nor  is  the  oc 
casion  to  be  slighted  which  this  proposition  offers  of  declaring 
our  protest  against  the  atrocious  violations  of  the  rights  of  na 
tions  by  the  interference  of  any  one  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
another,  so  flagitiously  begun  by  Bonaparte  and  now  continued 
by  the  equally  lawless  alliance  calling  itself  holy. 

"But  we  have  first  to  ask  ourselves  a  question.  Do  we  wish  to 
acquire  to  our  own  confederacy  any  one  or  more  of  the  Spanish 
provinces?  I  candidly  confess  that  I  have  ever  looked  on  Cuba 
as  the  most  interesting  addition  which  could  ever  be  made  to  our 
system  of  States.  The  control  which,  with  Florida  Point,  this 
island  would  give  us  over  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  the  countries 
and  isthmus  bordering  on  it,  as  well  as  all  those  whose  waters 
flow  into  it,  would  fill  up  the  measure  of  our  well-being.  Yet,  as 
I  am  sensible  that  this  can  never  be  obtained,  even  with  her  own 
consent,  but  by  war,  and  its  independence,  which  is  our  second 
interest  (and  especially  its  independence  of  England),  can  be 
secured  without  it,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  abandoning  my  first 
wish  to  future  chances,  and  accepting  its  independence,  with 
peace  and  the  friendship  of  England,  rather  than  its  association, 
at  the  expense  of  war  and  her  enmity. 

"I  could  honestly,  therefore,  join  in  the  declaration  proposed, 
that  we  aim  not  at  the  acquisition  of  any  of  those  possessions, 
that  we  will  not  stand  in  the  way  of  any  amicable  arrangement 
between  them  and  the  mother  country;  but  that  we  will  oppose 
with  all  our  means  the  forcible  interposition  of  any  other  power, 
as  auxiliary,  stipendiary,  or  under  any  other  form  or  pretext, 
and  most  especially  their  transfer  to  any  power  by  conquest, 
cession  or  acquisition  in  any  other  way.  I  should  think  it,  there 
fore,  advisable,  that  the  Executive  should  encourage  the  Brit 
ish  Government  to  a  continuance  in  the  dispositions  expressed 
in  these  letters  by  an  assurance  of  his  concurrence  with  them 
as  far  as  his  authority  goes ;  and  that  as  it  may  lead  to  war,  the 
declaration  of  which  requires  an  act  of  Congress,  the  case  shall 
be  laid  before  them  for  consideration  at  their  first  meeting,  and 
under  the  reasonable  aspect  in  which  it  is  seen  by  himself." 

A  similar  request  for  Madison's  advice  elicited  from  him  a 
similar  response: 

"From  the  disclosures  of  Mr.   Canning  it  appears,  as  was 


342  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

otherwise  to  be  inferred,  that  the  success  of  France  against  Spain 
would  be  followed  by  an  attempt  of  the  holy  allies  to  reduce 
the  revolutionized  colonies  of  the  latter  to  their  former  depend 
ence. 

' '  The  professions  we  have  made  to  these  neighbors,  our  sympa 
thies  with  their  liberties  and  independence,  the  deep  interest 
we  have  in  the  most  friendly  relations  with  them,  and  the  con 
sequences  threatened  by  a  command  of  their  resources  by  the 
great  powers,  confederated  against  the  rights  and  reforms  of 
which  we  have  given  so  conspicuous  and  persuasive  an  example, 
all  unite  in  calling  for  our  efforts  to  defeat  the  meditated  cru 
sade.  It  is  particularly  fortunate  that  the  policy  of  Great 
Britain,  though  guided  by  calculations  different  from  ours,  has 
presented  a  cooperation  for  an  object  the  same  with  ours.  With 
that  cooperation  we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  rest  of  Europe, 
and  with  it  the  best  assurance  of  success  to  our  laudable  views. 
There  ought  not,  therefore,  to  be  any  backwardness,  I  think,  in 
meeting  her  in  the  way  she  has  proposed,  keeping  in  view,  of 
course,  the  spirit  and  forms  of  the  Constitution  in  every  step 
taken  in  the  road  to  war,  which  must  be  the  last  step  if  those 
short  of  war  should  be  without  avail. 

"It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Mr.  Canning's  proposal,  though 
made  with  the  air  of  consultation,  as  well  as  concert,  was  founded 
on  a  predetermination  to  take  the  course  marked  out,  whatever 
might  be  the  reception  given  here  to  his  invitation.  But  this 
consideration  ought  not  to  divert  us  from  what  is  just  and 
proper  in  itself.  Our  cooperation  is  due  to  ourselves  and  to  the 
world;  and  whilst  it  must  ensure  success  in  the  event  of  an  ap 
peal  to  force,  it  doubles  the  chance  of  success  without  that  ap 
peal.  It  is  not  improbable  that  Great  Britain  would  like  best  to 
have  the  merit  of  being  the  sole  champion  of  her  new  friends,  not 
withstanding  the  greater  difficulty  to  be  encountered,  but  for 
the  dilemma  in  which  she  would  be  placed.  She  must,  in  that 
case,  either  leave  us,  as  neutrals,  to  extend  our  commerce  and 
navigation  at  the  expense  of  hers,  or  make  us  enemies,  by  renew 
ing  her  paper  blockades  and  other  arbitrary  proceedings  on  the 
ocean.  It  may  be  hoped  that  such  a  dilemma  will  not  be  with 
out  a  permanent  tendency  to  check  her  proneness  to  unneces 
sary  wars. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  343 

"Why  the  British  cabinet  should  have  scrupled  to  arrest  the 
calamity  it  now  apprehends,  by  applying  to  the  threats  of  France 
against  Spain  the  small  effort  which  it  scruples  not  to  employ 
in  behalf  of  Spanish  America,  is  best  known  to  itself.  It  is 
difficult  to  find  any  other  explanation  than  that  interest  in  the 
one  case  has  more  weight  in  its  casuistry  than  principle  had  in 
the  other. 

"Will  it  not  be  honorable  to  our  country,  and  possibly  not 
altogether  in  vain,  to  invite  the  British  Government  to  extend 
the  'avowed  disapprobation'  of  the  project  against  the  Spanish 
colonies  to  the  enterprise  of  France  against  Spain  herself,  and 
even  to  join  in  some  declaratory  act  in  behalf  of  the  Greeks? 
On  the  supposition  that  no  form  could  be  given  to  the  act  clear 
ing  it  of  a  pledge  to  follow  it  up  by  war,  we  ought  to  compare 
the  good  to  be  done  with  the  little  injury  to  be  apprehended  to 
the  United  States,  shielded  as  their  interests  would  be  by  the 
power  and  the  fleets  of  Great  Britain  united  with  their  own. 
These  are  questions,  however,  which  may  require  more  informa 
tion  than  I  possess,  and  more  reflection  than  I  can  now  give 
them. 

"What  is  the  extent  of  Mr.  Canning's  disclaimer  as  to  'the  re 
maining  possessions  of  Spain  in  America'?  Does  it  exclude  fu 
ture  views  of  acquiring  Porto  Rico,  etc.,  as  well  as  Cuba?  It, 
leaves  Great  Britain  free,  as  I  understand  it,  in  relation  to 
other  quarters  of  the  globe. " 

It  was  on  October  17  that  Monroe  sent  the  correspondence 
to  Jefferson,  which  Jefferson  received  on  October  23.  But  be 
fore  that,  on  October  16,  Baron  Tuyll,  the  Russian  minister  at 
Washington,  informed  Adams,  at  the  state  department,  that  the 
Russian  government  had  determined  not  to  receive  a  minister 
from  Colombia,  who  had  been  appointed,  or  indeed  one  from  any 
of  the  South  American  States  which  had  revolted  from  Spain. 
He  added  an  expression  of  the  czar 's  hope  that  the  United  States 
would  maintain  an  attitude  of  neutrality  in  the  contest  between 
Spain  and  her  rebellious  colonies.  Adams  replied  that  he  would 
transmit  this  information  to  the  President,  and  added  that  the 
United  States  would  doubtless  observe  neutrality,  so  long  as  all 
the  European  powers  did  the  same;  but  that  if  one  or  more  of 
the  latter  should  depart  from  that  policy,  that  change  of  circum- 


344  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

stances  would  have  to  be  considered  by  the  United  States,  with 
results  which  could  not  be  foretold. 

During  October  and  November,  1823,  Monroe  and  his  cabinet 
gave  much  time  to  discussions  of  this  matter.  Adams  thought 
that  Canning  wanted  the  United  States  to  pledge  itself  both  to 
resist  European  intervention  in  South  America  and  also  not  to 
take  for  itself  any  part  of  those  countries,  and  he  opposed  at 
least  the  latter  undertaking.  Calhoun,  on  the  other  hand,  fav 
ored  pledging  ourselves,  if  necessary,  not  to  take  even  Texas  and 
Cuba,  although  the  acquisition  of  both  had  been  considered. 
Monroe  would  probably  have  adopted  Ca.lhoun's  policy,  had  it 
not  been  for  Adams's  resolute  opposition.  Adams  urged  that  in 
the  forthcoming  message  the  President  should  take  strong  ground 
against  the  meddling  of  the  Holy  Alliance  in  American  affairs. 
Wirt  objected  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  would  not 
support  the  Government  in  a  war  for  the  protection  of  South 
America.  Calhoun,  who  seems  to  have  been  almost  panic- 
stricken  with  fear  of  Europe,  believed  that  the  Holy  Alliance 
"had  an  ultimate  eye  to  us;  that  they  would,  if  not  resisted, 
subdue  South  America.  Violent  parties  would  arise  in  this 
country,  one  for  and  one  against  them,  and  we  should  have  to 
fight  upon  our  own  shores  for  our  own  institutions."  Adams 
did  not  fear  any  attack  upon  the  United  States,  but  thought 
that  if  the  allies  intervened  in  South  America  they  would  prob 
ably  divide  that  continent  among  themselves.  France  would 
take  Mexico,  Russia  would  take  California,  Peru  and  Chile,  and 
England  would  take  Cuba.  That  would  be  disastrous  to  the 
United  States.  On  the  other  hand,  said  Adams,  if  the  United 
States  hesitated  and  let  Great  Britain  alone  save  South  America 
from  subjugation,  all  those  colonies  would  become  tributary  to 
her.  The  United  States  must  therefore  act  promptly  and  de 
cisively.  A  pledge  of  war  was  not  required.  The  President  alone 
could  not  make  that,  and  Canning  did  not  ask  it.  All  that  was 
required  was  an  expression  of  policy,  which  would  leave  Con 
gress  free  to  act  thereafter  as  occasion  might  require. 

The  last  act  before  the  delivery  of  Monroe's  message  was  the 
adoption  by  the  cabinet  of  a  note  prepared  by  Adams  for  pre 
sentation  to  Baron  Tuyll.  This  was  dated  November  27,  1823. 
It  contained  an  explicit  statement  of  American  policy  concerning 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  345 

South  America,  and  concluded  as  follows:  "That  the  United 
States  of  America  and  their  Government  could  not  see  with  in 
difference  the  forcible  interposition  of  any  European  power, 
other  than  Spain,  either  to  restore  the  dominion  of  Spain  over 
her  emancipated  colonies  in  America,  or  to  establish  monarchi 
cal  governments  in  those  countries,  or  to  transfer  any  of  the1 
possessions  heretofore  or  yet  subject  to  Spain  in  the  American 
hemisphere  to  any  other  European  power." 

The  message  containing  the  so-called  doctrine  was  Monroe's 
regular  annual  message  to  Congress  at  the  opening  of  the  session, 
on  December  2,  1823.  The  message  began  with  the  usual  rou 
tine  report  of  transactions  and  relations  with  the  various  foreign 
countries,  in  the  course  of  which,  in  speaking  of  the  negotiations 
with  Russia,  one  part  of  the  Doctrine  was  set  forth,  in  terms  simi 
lar  to  those  addressed  by  Adams  to  Baron  Tuyll  in  July  pre-j^ 
ceding,  as  follows: 

' i  The  occasion  has  been  judged  proper  for  asserting,  as  a  prin 
ciple  in  which  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  United  States  are 
involved,  that  the  American  continents,  by  the  free  and  inde 
pendent  condition  which  they  have  assumed  and  maintain,  are 
henceforth  not  to  be  considered  as  subjects  for  future  coloniza 
tion  by  any  European  powers." 

This  was,  indeed,  simply  a  reference  to  and  a  direct  reaffirma- 
tion  of  Adams's  words  to  Tuyll.  The  message  continued  with  a 
review  of  domestic  interests  and  transactions.  Then,  near  the 
close,  it  reverted  to  foreign  affairs.  Ardent  sympathy  was  ex 
pressed  with  Greece  in  her  struggle  for  independence.  Refer 
ence  was  made  to  the  unhappy  condition  of  Spain  and  Portugal, 
and  the  message  then  proceeded  as  follows : 

"The  citizens  of  the  United  States  cherish  sentiments  the 
most  friendly  in  favor  of  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  their 
fellow  men  on  that  side  of  the  Atlantic.  In  the  wars  of  the 
European  powers,  in  matters  relating  to  themselves,  we  have 
never  taken  any  part,  nor  does  it  comport  with  our  policy  so  to 
do.  It  is  only  when  our  rights  are  invaded  or  seriously  menaced 
that  we  resent  injuries  or  make  preparation  for  our  defense. 
With  the  movements  in  this  hemisphere  we  are,  of  necessity, 
more  immediately  connected,  and  by  causes  which  must  be  ob 
vious  to  all  enlightened  and  impartial  observers.  The  political 


346  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

system  of  the  allied  powers  is  essentially  different  in  this  re 
spect  from  that  of  America.  This  difference  proceeds  from  that 
which  exists  in  their  respective  Governments.  And  to  the  de 
fense  of  our  own,  which  has  been  achieved  by  the  loss  of  so  much 
blood  and  treasure,  and  matured  by  the  wisdom  of  their  most 
enlightened  citizens,  and  under  which  we  have  enjoyed  unex 
ampled  felicity,  this  whole  nation  is  devoted.  We  owe  it,  there 
fore,  to  candor  and  to  the  amicable  relations  existing  between 
the  United  States  and  those  powers,  to  declare  that  we  should 
consider  any  attempt  on  their  part  to  extend  their  system  to 
any  portion  of  this  hemisphere  as  dangerous  to  our  peace  and 
safety.  With  the  existing  colonies  or  dependencies  of  any  Euro 
pean  power  we  have  not  interfered,  and  shall  not  interfere. 
But  with  the  Governments  who  have  declared  their  independ 
ence  and  maintained  it,  and  whose  independence  we  have,  on 
great  consideration  and  on  just  principle,  acknowledged,  we 
could  not  view  any  interposition  for  the  purpose  of  oppressing 
them,  or  controlling  in  any  other  manner  their  destiny,  by  any 
European  power,  in  any  other  light  than  as  the  manifestation 
of  an  unfriendly  disposition  toward  the  United  States.  In  the 
war  between  those  new  Governments  and  Spain  we  declared 
our  neutrality  at  the  time  of  their  recognition,  and  to  this  we 
have  adhered,  and  shall  continue  to  adhere,  provided  no  change 
shall  occur  which,  in  the  judgment  of  the  competent  authorities 
of  this  Government,  shall  make  a  corresponding  change  on  the 
part  of  the  United  States  indispensable  to  their  security. 

"The  late  events  in  Spain  and  Portugal  show  that  Europe  is 
still  unsettled.  Of  this  important  fact  no  stronger  proof  can 
be  adduced  than  that  the  allied  powers  should  have  thought  it 
proper,  on  any  principle  satisfactory  to  themselves,  to  have  in 
terposed  by  force  in  the  internal  concerns  of  Spain.  To  what 
extent  such  interposition  may  be  carried,  on  the  same  principle, 
is  a  question  in  which  all  independent  powers  whose  Govern 
ments  differ  from  theirs  are  interested,  even  those  most  remote, 
and  surely  none  more  so  than  the  United  States.  Our  policy  in 
regard  to  Europe,  which  was  adopted  at  an  early  stage  of  the 
wars  which  have  so  long  agitated  that  quarter  of  the  globe,  never 
theless  remains  the  same,  which  is,  not  to  interfere  in  the  internal 
concerns  of  any  of  its  powers,  to  consider  the  Government  de 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  347 

facto  as  the  legitimate  Government  for  us,  to  cultivate  friendly 
relations  with  it,  and  to  preserve  those  relations  by  a  frank, 
firm,  and  manly  policy,  meeting  in  all  instances  the  just  claims 
of  every  power,  submitting  to  injuries  from  none.  But  in  re 
gard  to  these  continents,  circumstances  are  eminently  and  con 
spicuously  different.  It  is  impossible  that  the  allied  powers 
should  extend  their  political  system  to  any  portion  of  either 
continent  without  endangering  our  peace  and  happiness,  nor 
can  any  one  believe  that  our  southern  brethren,  if  left  to  them 
selves,  would  adopt  it  of  their  own  accord.  It  is  equally  impos 
sible,  therefore,  that  we  should  behold  such  interposition,  in  any 
form,  with  indifference.  If  we  look  to  the  comparative  strength 
and  resources  of  Spain  and  those  new  Governments,  and  their 
distance  from  each  other,  it  must  be  obvious  that  she  can  never 
subdue  them.  It  is  still  the  true  policy  of  the  United  Statee  to 
leave  the  parties  to  themselves,  in  the  hope  that  other  powers 
will  pursue  the  same  course." 

The  reception  and  appreciation  of  the  doctrine  in  the  United 
States  may  perhaps  best  be  briefly  described  in  the  words  of 
Daniel  Webster,  who  did  not  exaggerate  when  he  said :  ' '  It  met 
with  the  entire  concurrence  and  hearty  approbation  of  the  coun 
try.  One  general  glow  of  exultation,  one  universal  feeling  of 
gratified  love  of  liberty,  one  conscious  and  proud  perception  of 
the  consideration  which  our  country  possessed,  and  of  the  respect 
and  honor  which  belonged  to  it,  pervaded  all  bosoms. ' '  In  Great 
Britain,  also,  it  was  regarded  with  gratification.  "We  shall 
hear  no  more,"  said  one  journal,  "of  a  congress  to  settle  the  fate 
of  the  South  American  States."  "It  is  worthy,"  said  another, 
' '  the  occasion  and  the  people  destined  to  occupy  so  large  a  space 
in  the  future  history  of  the  world."  Brougham  declared: 
"The  question  with  regard  to  South  America  is  now  disposed 
of,  or  nearly  so,  for  an  event  has  recently  happened  than  which 
no  event  has  dispensed  greater  joy,  exultation,  and  gratitude 
over  all  the  freemen  of  Europe;  that  event,  which  is  decisive  on 
the  subject  in  respect  to  South  America,  is  the  message  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  Congress."  The  noncoloniza- 
tion  clauses  were  not,  indeed,  approved  in  England  nor  accepted 
by  the  British  government.  On  the  contrary,  in  a  "general  ne 
gotiation"  which  soon  after  occurred  between  the  plenipoten- 


348  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tiaries  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  it  was  expressly 
declared  that  Great  Britain  considered  the  whole  of  the  unoc 
cupied  parts  of  America  as  being  open  to  her  future  settlements. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact  few  such  settlements  were  attempted 
save  in  the  regions  already  assigned  to  Great  Britain,  and  that 
feature  of  the  message  was  soon  lost  sight  of  before  the  superior 
significance  of  the  remainder.  As  for  South  America  itself,  its 
diplomatic  representatives  in  Europe  were  "wild  with  joy,"  and 
South  American  securities  of  all  kinds  rose  greatly  in  value. 
On  the  Continent,  among  the  allied  powers,  there  was  a  mixture 
of  chagrin  and  disappointment,  together  with  a  general  feeling 
that  all  further  designs  upon  America  must  forthwith  be 
dropped;  as  they  were. 

Credit  for  the  authorship  of  the  doctrine  has  been  variously 
claimed.  Canning  afterward  boasted  in  Parliament  that  it  was 
his  work  and  that  he  had  "called  the  New  World  into  existence, 
to  redress  the  balance  of  the  Old. ' '  But  that  was  surely  an  ex 
aggeration.  Canning  was  entitled  to  much  credit  for  the  en 
couragement  which  he  gave  to  the  United  States,  and  for  his 
warnings  of  the  urgency  of  the  situation  and  the  need  of  prompt 
action;  but  that  was  all.  That,  moreover,  related  to  only  one 
half  of  the  doctrine,  namely,  the  declaration  of  complete  sepa 
ration  between  the  European  and  American  systems  and  the  in 
sistence  that  it  must  be  maintained  both  by  American  abstention 
from  meddling  in  European  affairs  and  by  European  abstention 
from  meddling  in  American  affairs.  And  even  that  half  of  the 
doctrine  appeared  in  essentially  different  form  from  that  which 
Canning  had  intended.  For  he  had  meant  that  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  should  act  jointly,  or  identically;  which 
was  not  done.  On  the  contrary,  that  plan  was  specifically  re 
jected,  Adams  declaring  that  "it  would  be  more  candid,  as  well 
as  more  dignified,  to  avow  our  principles  directly  to  Russia  and 
France,  than  to  come  in  as  a  cock  boat  in  the  wake  of  the  Brit 
ish  man-of-war."  In  addition,  Canning  seems  to  have  wished, 
or  at  any  rate  Adams  supposed  that  he  wished,  the  United  States 
to  pledge  itself  to  seek  no  special  privileges  and  to  exercise  no 
special  influence,  in  Spanish  America,  and  to  that  Adams  so 
strenuously  and  effectively  objected  that  not  a  hint  of  such  self- 
abnegation  is  anywhere  perceptible  in  the  message.  These  are 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  349 

the  certain  exceptions  to  or  rather  the  limitations  of  Canning's 
connection  with  that  portion  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

The  other  part  of  the  doctrine,  quite  distinct  from  that  already 
described,  was  a  flat  prohibition  of  further  European  coloniza 
tion  of  the  American  continents.  It  is  quite  certain  that  Can 
ning  was  not  the  author  of  that.  He  did  not  encourage  it.  He 
did  not  appro.ve  it,  but  to  the  end  maintained  an  attitude  of  chal 
lenge  and  antagonism  toward  it,  incorrectly  imagining  that  it 
would  militate  against  Great  Britain's  further  colonization  of 
her  great  northwest  territories,  and  against  her  designs  of  ac 
quiring  by  colonization  a  part  of  the  disputed  Oregon  territory. 
To  one  part  of  the  doctrine,  therefore,  he  gave  a  qualified  en 
couragement,  while  with  the  other  part  he  had  absolutely  no 
concern  and  no  sympathy. 

The  claim  of  authorship  for  Adams  rests  on  immeasurably  bet 
ter  ground.  It  is  quite  certain  that  he  was  in  full  sympathy 
with  every  word  of  it.  The  portion  relating  to  the  distinction 
between  the  European  and  American  political  systems  he  did 
not  conceive,  but  received  it  from  his  predecessors,  Washington,. 
Hamilton,  Jefferson,  and  others.  The  other  portion,  prohibit 
ing  further  European  colonization,  may,  however,  be  largely  if 
not  entirely  attributed  to  him.  It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  closely 
anticipated  in  his  note  to  Baron  Tuyll,  which  was  his  own  com 
position,  though  it  was  discussed  and  approved  by  the  whole 
cabinet  before  it  was  delivered.  It  is  supposable,  then,  that 
Adams,  himself  practically  conceiving  one  part  and  formulating 
the  other  part  from  antecedent  utterances  of  former  statesmen, 
drafted  the  doctrine  and  submitted  it  to  Monroe  for  incorpora 
tion  in  his  message — a  common  practice  of  cabinet  ministers. 
But  there  are  intrinsic  indications  that  the-  verbal  form  of  it  was 
largely  recast  by  Monroe  himself.  It  is  in  his  rather  than 
Adams's  style  of  expression. 

That  portion  of  the  doctrine  prohibiting  European  coloniza 
tion  of  the  American  continents  was  long  ago  rendered  obsolete. 
Its  purpose  was  accomplished  in  the  occupation  and  settlement 
of  all  parts  of  the  continents  by  the  existing  powers,  leaving  no 
room  for  such  European  colonization.  The  other  part,  relating 
to  the  separation  of  the  European  and  American  systems,  is  on 
the  contrary  as  vital  and  essential  to-day  as  it  was  when  it  was 


350  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

first  enunciated,  and  it  is  to  it  that  chief  consideration  is  to  be 
given.  It  rests,  obviously,  upon  that  fundamental,  immutable, 
and  perpetual  principle  of  the  right  of  self-defense,  which  Mon 
roe  so  vigorously  proclaimed  during  the  controversy  over  Flor 
ida.  It  was  for  the  sake  of  "our  peace  and  safety"  that  Euro 
pean  nations  were  warned  to  keep  hands  off  South  America.  It 
was  declared  to  be  impossible  for  the  European  powers  to  ex 
tend  their  system  to  any  part  of  America  "without  endanger 
ing  our  peace  and  happiness."  That  principle  of  self-defense 
crops  up  in  almost  every  sentence.  It  is  the  essential  spirit  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine,  its  very  excuse  for  being. 

We  may  thus  regard  the  doctrine  as  adding  the  final  capstone 
to  the  edifice  of  American  independence.  First,  the  colonists 
came  hither  to  escape  the  evils  of  European  systems.  But  they 
found  that  as  colonies  of  European  powers  they  were  still  sub 
ject  to  the  same  old  evils.  Next,  they  established  their  political 
independence,  in  hope  of  thus  completing  the  work.  But  they 
found  that  with  great  abutting  territories  in  the  hands  of  foreign 
powers,  and  being  transferred  from  one  power  to  another,  they 
were  not  yet  entirely  freed  from  European  menaces.  So_Lpu- 
isiana  and  Florid  were  taken,  to  give  us  geofgraphical  inde 
pendence.  But  even  that  was  not  enough,  and  so  Monroe  sought 
to' complete  the  work  in  this  declaration  of  diplomatic  inde 
pendence. 

It  is  not  the  present  purpose  to  attempt  a  detailed  exposition 
or  interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  or  a  commentary  upon 
it.  From  the  text  of  the  message  and  the  circumstances  of  its 
origin,  it  is  obvious  that  there  was  no  thought  of  making  it  a 
part  of  the  international  law  of  the  world.  It  was  not  even  a 
fixed  rule  binding  upon  the  United  States.  It  neither  created 
nor  proposed  any  conventional  obligation,  either  with  Europe 
or  with  South  America.  It  was  no  menace  of  hostility  to  the 
former  and  no  pledge  of  protection  to  the  latter.  It  was  an  ex 
pression  of  the  policy  which  the  United  States  purposed  to  pur 
sue,  at  its  own  discretion,  and  solely  for  the  sake  of  its  own  peace 
and  security,  in  respect  to  a  single  specific  contingency.  So 
much,  at  least,  concerning  that  second  part  of  the  doctrine,  upon 
which  by  far  the  greater  stress  has  ever  been  laid.  The  first 
part,  relative  to  European  colonization  of  these  continents,  was 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  351 

indeed  perpetual  in  its  intent,  though,  as  we  have  said,  the  logic 
of  events  soon  rendered  it  apparently  superfluous.  But  in  time 
the  perpetual  intent  of  the  first  part  became  shifted  to  the  purely 
temporary  and  occasional  provision  of  the  second,  and  caused 
the  expansion  and  confirmation  of  the  latter  into  a  fixed  prin 
ciple  of  national  policy. 

In  even  the  fullest  of  such  development,  however,  the  doctrine 
has  its  manifest  limitations.  It  pledges  America  not  to  meddle 
in  European  matters  and  warns  Europe  not  to  meddle  in  Amer 
ica.  But  the  reference  is  solely  to  politics.  There  is  no  hint 
at  prohibition  of  commercial,  fiscal,  and  other  relations;  nor  of 
diplomatic  relations;  nor  of  the  exercise  of  ordinary  measures, 
peaceful  or  forcible,  for  the  satisfaction  of  just  claims  or  the 
settlement  of  disputes ;  nor  even  of  the  waging  of  war.  All  these 
things  have,  in  fact,  been  done  under  the  doctrine,  without  vio 
lation  of  its  letter  or  spirit.  The  doctrine  affords  no  screen  be 
hind  which  South  American  States  can  enjoy  immunity  from 
the  penalty  of  misconduct,  or  evade  their  just  obligations,  or  in 
any  way  escape  the  common  responsibilities  of  civilized  nations. 
Of  course  the  doctrine  gives  us  no  authority  over  those  States, 
and  no  right  to  intervene  in  their  domestic  affairs.  These  latter 
relations  might  have  been  established  if  the  doctrine  had  been 
promulgated  at  the  request  of  those  States  and  primarily  for 
their  protection.  But  it  was  not.  It  was  made  at  our  own  in 
itiative,  and  for  our  own  good,  and  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
South  American  States  welcomed  and  rejoiced  in  it,  they  were 
under  no  compulsion,  moral  or  legal,  to  do  so,  or  even  to  regard 
it  with  gratitude.  The  title  of  the  United  States  to  intervene 
in  any  way  among  its  southern  neighbors  rests  not  upon  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  but  upon  that  vastly  more  important,  primal 
principle  upon  which  the  doctrine  itself  was  based,  namely,  the 
law  of  self -protection.  It  was  to  protect  ourselves  that  we  for 
bade  European  monarchies  to  intrude  their  systems  into  this 
hemisphere;  and  it  will  be  to  protect  ourselves  from  annoyance 
and  to  abate  for  our  own  good  intolerable  nuisances  that  we  in 
tervene,  if  ever  we  do  so,  in  the  affairs  of  our  southern  neighbors. 

There  is  ground  for  believing  that  Adams  had  a  somewhat 
more  ambitious  view  of  the  application  of  the  doctrine  than  that 
which  now  generally  prevails.  The  word  "hegemony"  had  not 


352  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

then  come  into  use,  but  the  idea  which  it  conveys  was  and  had 
long  been  familiar.  It  was  as  old  at  least  as  ancient  Greece, 
and  Adams,  as  a  classical  student,  was  familiar  with  the  su 
premacy  and  leadership  which  sometimes  Athens  and  sometimes 
Sparta  had  exercised  among  the  States  of  Hellas.  He  was  famil 
iar,  also,  through  his  long  residence  in  Europe,  with  the  similar 
leadership  which  one  State  there  sometimes  had  over  others,  as 
in  the  German  confederation.  There  is  little  doubt  that  he  had 
in  mind  such  a  hegemony  of  the  United  States  over  its  lesser 
neighbors  at  the  south.  He  indicated  this  a  little  later,  in  his 
own  administration,  in  his  policy  toward  the  Panama  Congress. 
It  is  not  impossible  that  if  it  had  then  been  judiciously  broached 
that  system  would  have  been  accepted  by  the  Spanish  American 
States,  and  would  have  proved  beneficial  to  all  concerned.  But 
it  was  not  even  hinted  at  in  the  doctrine,  though  of  course  it  was 
not  denied  nor  forbidden.  There  was  simply  nothing  said  about 
it.  Perhaps  this  silence  was  judicious;  since  a  declaration  of 
such  hegemony,  or  of  the  possibility  of  it,  would  certainly  have 
provoked  protest  and  antagonism  from  Canning,  whom,  as  we 
have  seen,  Adams  credited  with  a  desire  to  have  us  explicitly 
pledge  ourselves  not  to  take  such  a  course.  At  any  rate,  noth 
ing  was  said,  and  the  matter  was  left  entirely  open  and  unde 
cided,  to  be  disposed  of  as  future  contingencies  might  require. 
The  radical  contrast  between  the  two  parties  over  the  matter  of 
human  slavery  soon  disinclined  the  Latin  States  to  enter  into 
such  relations,  and  of  course  their  own  growth  in  population 
and  strength  confirmed  that  disinclination ;  until  to-day  nothing 
could  be  more  offensive  than  the  suggestion  of  such  hegemony. 
This  is  also  to  be  particularly  observed,  that  the  doctrine  did 
not  and  does  not  in  any  way  apply  to  any  other  parts  of  the 
world  than  Europe  and  America,  and  perhaps  to  European  and 
American  colonies  or  possessions  elsewhere.  There  was  no  men 
tion  of  Asia,  or  Africa,  or  the  islands  of  the  sea.  The  United 
States  did  not  warn  the  European  powers  against  extending  their 
system  thither,  and  it  certainly  did  not  bind  itself  not  to  extend 
its  own  authority  and  ownership.  All  other  parts  of  the  world 
were  left  open  and  free,  for  American  as  well  as  for  European 
cultivation  and — if  need  be — conquest.  Accordingly  the  con 
quest  and  annexation  of  the  Philippine  Islands,  three  quarters  of 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  353 

a  century  later,  was  in  no  sense  a  violation  of  the  doctrine,  and 
indeed  had  not  the  slightest  relation  to  it;  any  more  than  the 
French  conquest  of  Anam,  or  the  European  partition  of  Africa. 
One  more  point.  Since  the  doctrine  was  not  law  or  treaty,  it 
is  not  to  be  construed  as  such  according  to  its  literal  terms,  nor 
is  its  application  to  be  confined  to  facts  or  conditions  precisely 
similar  to  those  which  called  it  forth.  The  application  of  it  is 
to  be  determined,  rather,  upon  the  broad  ground  of  general 
principles;  inquiring  whether  the  specific  facts  of  any  case  lie 
within  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  policy  to  which  Monroe 
gave  enunciation.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  supposed,  for  example, 
that  Monroe  and  his  colleagues  had  in  mind  the  making  and 
control  of  a  canal  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  and  the  doc 
trine  was  not  intentionally  framed  for  application  to  such  a 
work.  But  it  is  not  only  supposable  but  substantially  certain 
that  if  the  matter  had  been  brought  to  their  attention  they  would 
unhesitatingly  have  held  that  the  doctrine  fully  applied  to  the 
canal  and  forbade  its  being  subject  to  European  control.  Or 
perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  they  would  have 
held  that  the  same  principle  of  self-protection  which  inspired 
and  justified  the  Monroe  Doctrine  also  made  it  right  and  essen 
tial  that  any  such  canal  should  be  "an  American  canal  under 
American  control."  The  Monroe  Doctrine  was  and  is,  in  brief, 
not  itself  a  universal  law,  but  merely  the  application  of  a  uni 
versal  law  to  a  certain  specific  contingency;  and  its  supreme 
value  and  validity  are  in  its  reminder  of  the  just  and  inevitable 
application  of  that  same  law  to  every  contingency  of  our  national 
life — the  universal  and  immutable  law  of  self -protection. 


VOL.  1—23 


XIII 

EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS 

THE  enunciation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  promptly  fol 
lowed  by  a  marked  expansion  of  American  interests,  and 
especially  of  the  foreign  relationships  of  the  country.  This  was 
natural,  because  of  three  attendant  circumstances.  One  was, 
that  the  doctrine  was  the  most  advanced  proclamation  of  what 
we  may  term  "world  power  status"  that  the  United  States  had 
thus  far  made.  In  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  is  true, 
we  had  proclaimed  ourselves  a  peer  among  the  nations  in  author 
ity  and  responsibility,  but  we  had  not  by  any  means  always  com 
ported  ourselves  as  such.  But  now  in  the  most  direct  and  em 
phatic  manner  the  United  States  announced  itself  to  be  a  true 
"world  power,"  and  a  member — if  not  by  implication  the  head 
— of  a  rival  international  system  to  that  of  Europe.  No  longer 
subject  to  the  vicissitudes  and  caprices  of  European  politics,  we 
were  setting  up  a  scheme  of  American  politics  to  counterbal 
ance  that  from  which  we  had  divorced  ourselves,  and  in  conse 
quence  we  began  to  readjust  all  our  international  relationships 
on  that  new  basis. 

The  second  circumstance  was  the  establishment  of  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  Latin  American  States.  This  gave  us  a  num 
ber  of  new  neighbors  with  which  to  enter  into  diplomatic  and 
commercial  relations.  They  were,  moreover,  neighbors  which  it 
was  peculiarly  appropriate,  and  indeed  incumbent  upon  us,  to 
take  into  intimate  relations.  That  we  did  not  do  so  must  be 
accounted  one  of  the  most  regrettable  failures  of  our  govern 
mental  policy  at  that  time  and  for  many  years  since.  But  de 
spite  that  failure,  there  was  in  that  direction  a  marked  expan 
sion  of  American  interests. 

The  third  circumstance  was  our  own  rapid  growth  in  popula 
tion,  wealth,  and  commerce,  which  not  only  made  us  more  and 
more  powerful  in  peace  and  in  war  but  also  made  it  necessary 

354 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  355 

for  us  to  enlarge  our  scope  of  interests  in  order  to  afford  room 
for  the  activities  of  the  expanding  nation. 

One  of  the  first  diplomatic  problems  presented  to  the  Gov 
ernment  at  this  time  was  that  of  recognition  of  new  powers. 
The  only  occasion  on  which  it  had  hitherto  been  raised  was  when 
the  French  Eevolution  overthew  the  Bourbon  monarchy  and  es 
tablished  the  First  Republic.  Now,  in  the  presence  of  a  number 
of  new  States  in  Latin  America,  it  was  renewed  in  a  much  more 
important  form.  It  had  first  to  be  determined  by  what  depart 
ment  of  the  Government  the  act  of  recognition  was  to  be  per 
formed.  For  several  years  Congress,  under  the  leadership  of 
Clay,  strove  at  least  to  force  the  President  to  recognize  the  new 
countries  at  its  bidding.  This  compulsion  was  resisted  with 
success,  and  the  principle  was  securely  established  that  the  act 
of  recognition  was  to  be  performed  by  the  President,  at  his  own 
discretion ;  though  it  would  generally  be  necessary  for  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  acquiesce  in  that  action  and  to  comple 
ment  it  by  appropriating  the  means  for  sending  diplomatic  rep 
resentatives  to  the  new  governments.  In  default  of  such  appro 
priation,  however,  recognition  would  still  be  valid  and  effective 
for  legal  and  diplomatic  purposes,  since  the  accrediting  of  min 
isters  is  not  an  essential  function  of  recognition. 

That  point  determined,  it  became  obvious  that  various  circum 
stances  were  to  be  considered  by  the  executive  in  the  exercise 
of  his  discretion.  The  chief  of  these,  and  their  application  to 
the  cases  of  the  Latin- American  States,  were  well  stated  by  John 
Quincy  Adams  in  a  letter  to  the  Spanish  minister,  Mr.  Anduaga, 
in  1822,  prior  to  the  enunciation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Mr. 
Adams  said: 

"In  every'  question  relating  to  the  independence  of  a  nation 
two  principles  are  involved,  one  of  right  and  the  other  of  fact ; 
the  former  exclusively  depending  upon  the  determination  of 
the  nation  itself,  and  the  latter  resulting  from  the  successful 
execution  of  that  determination.  This  right  has  been  recently 
exercised  as  well  by  the  Spanish  nation  in  Europe  as  by  sev 
eral  of  those  countries  in  the  American  hemisphere  which  had 
for  two  or  three  centuries  been  connected,  as  colonies,  with 
Spain.  In  the  conflicts  which  have  attended  these  revolutions 
the  United  States  have  carefully  abstained  from  taking  any 


356  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

part,  respecting  the  right  of  the  nations  concerned  in  them  to 
maintain  or  reorganize  their  own  political  constitutions,  and 
observing,  wherever  it  was  a  contest  by  arms,  a  most  impartial 
neutrality ;  but  the  civil  war  in  which  Spain  was  for  some  years 
involved  with  the  inhabitants  of  her  colonies  in  America  has, 
in  substance,  ceased  to  exist.  Treaties  equivalent  to  an  acknowl 
edgment  of  independence  have  been  concluded  by  the  com 
manders  and  viceroys  of  Spain  herself  with  the  Republic  of 
Colombia,  with  Mexico,  and  with  Peru,  while  in  the  provinces 
of  La  Plata  and  in  Chile  no  Spanish  force  has  for  several  years 
existed  to  dispute  the  independence  which  the  inhabitants  of 
those  countries  had  declared. 

"Under  these  circumstances,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  far  from  consulting  the  dictates  of  a  policy  questionable 
in  its  morality,  yielded  to  an  obligation  of  duty  of  the  highest 
order  by  recognizing  as  independent  States  nations  which,  after 
deliberately  asserting  their  right  to  that  character,  have  main 
tained  and  established  it  against  all  resistance  which  had  been 
or  could  be  brought  to  oppose  it.  This  recognition  is  neither  in 
tended  to  invalidate  any  right  of  Spain  nor  to  affect  the  em 
ployment  of  any  means  which  she  may  yet  be  disposed  or 
enabled  to  use  with  the  view  of  reuniting  those  provinces  to  the 
rest  of  her  dominions.  It  is  the  mere  acknowledgment  of  ex 
isting  facts  with  the  view  to  the  regular  establishment  with  the 
nations  newly  formed  of  those  relations,  political  or  commercial, 
which  it  is  the  moral  obligation  of  civilized  and  Christian  nations 
to  entertain  reciprocally  with  one  another." 

Again,  in  1823,  Adams  wrote  to  Anderson,  the  American  en 
voy  to  Colombia,  as  follows : 

11  While  Spain  maintained  a  doubtful  contest  with  arms  to 
recover  her  dominion,  it  was  regarded  as  a  civil  war.  When 
that  contest  became  so  manifestly  desperate  that  Spanish  vice 
roys,  governors,  and  captains-general  themselves  concluded 
treaties  with  the  insurgents,  virtually  acknowledging  their  in 
dependence,  then  the  United  States  frankly  and  unreservedly 
recognized  the  fact,  without  making  their  acknowledgment  the 
price  of  any  favor  to  themselves,  and  although  at  the  hazard 
of  incurring  the  displeasure  of  Spain.  In  this  measure  they 
have  taken  the  lead  of  the  whole  civilized  world;  for  although 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  357 

the  Portuguese-Brazilian  government  had  a  few  months  before 
recognized  the  revolutionary  government  of  Buenos  Aires,  it 
was  at  a  moment  when  a  projected  declaration  of  its  own  inde 
pendence  made  the  question  substantially  their  own  cause,  and 
it  was  presented  as  an  equivalent  for  a  reciprocal  recognition 
of  their  own  much  more  questionable  right  to  the  eastern  shore 
of  La  Plata." 

At  the  time  of  its  recognition  in  1822  Colombia  comprised  New 
Granada,  which  is  the  present  Colombia,  and  also  Venezuela 
and  Ecuador.  In  1835  the  country  was  divided  into  the  three 
separate  and  independent  States,  and  these  were  individually 
recognized  by  the  United  States.  It  does  not  appear  that  the 
United  States  ever  recognized  the  "  United  Provinces  of  the  Kio 
de  la  Plata"  under  that  name;  but  it  recognized  Buenos  Aires 
in  1823,  at  which  time  that  government  exercised  its  sway 
over  the  United  Provinces  and  also  over  Uruguay  and  Paraguay. 
The  latter  two  States  were  in  turn  individually  recognized  re 
spectively  in  1836  and  1852.  Chile  and  Mexico  were  recognized 
in  1823,  on  the  same  day  with  Buenos  Aires.  Recognition  was 
given  to  Brazil  and  to  the  Federation  of  Central  American 
States  in  1824,  and  to  Peru  in  1826.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that 
the  independence  of  Mexico  and  Brazil  was  recognized  as 
promptly  as  that  of  any  other  States,  though  they  were  not  re 
publics  but  empires.  The  political  form  of  their  government 
caused  no  hesitation  nor  discrimination  on  our  part  in  recog 
nizing  them. 

In  addition  to  thus  itself  recognizing  the  independence  of 
the  Latin  American  States,  this  country  promptly  sought  by 
the  exercise  of  its  friendly  offices  to  persuade  Spain  to  do  the 
same.  In  1825  John  Quincy  Adams  became  President  and 
Henry  Clay  secretary  of  state,  and  one  of  the  earliest  acts 
of  that  administration  was  the  sending  of  instructions  to  the 
American  minister  to  Spain,  A.  H.  Everett,  to  urge  upon  the 
Spanish  government  the  desirability  of  such  recognition. 
Clay  also  instructed  the  American  minister  to  Russia,  Henry 
Middleton,  to  ask  the  czar  to  offer  his  services  and  good  offices 
as  a  mediator,  and  to  represent  to  Spain  the  hopelessness  of 
the  struggle  and  the  necessity  of  prompt  recognition  of  the  in 
dependence  of  the  States.  Irenic  instructions  were  given  to 


358  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Everett's  successor,  C.  P.  Van  Ness,  in  1830,  and  in  1834  he 
was  able  to  report  that  Spain  was  willing  to  enter  into  negotia 
tions  with  her  former  provinces  to  that  end.  He  was  then 
further  instructed  to  tender  the  good  offices  of  this  government 
to  the  fullest  extent  for  the  facilitation  of  the  negotiations,  and 
also,  in  view  of  the  natural  ties  of  race  and  tradition  between 
South  America  and  Spain,  he  was  directed  to  guard  against 
any  effort  on  the  part  of  Spain  "to  obtain,  in  consideration  of 
her  recognition  of  the  independence  of  her  former  colonies, 
some  peculiar  advantages  in  trade,  or  some  extraordinary  privi 
leges  for  her  citizens,  to  the  prejudice  of  other  friendly  nations." 
Such  an  arrangement,  it  was  declared,  "  would  be  peculiarly 
prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  this  country,  and  would  form 
a  just  ground  of  complaint  against  those  whom  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  was  the  first  to  recognize  in  their  in 
dependent  character,  and  for  whose  prosperity  it  has  never 
ceased  to  manifest  the  most  friendly  and  anxious  concern." 

The  United  States  did  not,  however,  consistently  maintain 
the  interest  in  the  Latin  American  States  which  it  professed 
to  feel  and  which  it  naturally  should  have  felt.  On  the  con 
trary,  it  soon  committed  an  act  which  largely  stultified  its 
professions  and  which  caused  a  certain  estrangement  between  it 
and  its  southern  neighbors  which  has  not  even  yet  been  entirely 
outgrown.  In  December,  1824,  Bolivar  issued  an  invitation  to 
all  the  republics  of  the  New  World  excepting  the  United  States 
to  assemble  in  the  first  "Pan-American  Congress"  at  Panama. 
"It  is  time,"  he  wrote,  "that  the  interest  and  sympathy  uniting 
the  -American  republics  should  have  a  fundamental  basis  that 
shall  perpetuate,  if  possible,  their  governments."  So  he  pro 
posed  a  congress  of  plenipotentiaries  from  all  the  States,  "that 
shall  act  as  a  council  in  great  conflicts  to  be  appealed  to  in 
case  of  common  danger,  be  a  faithful  interpreter  of  public 
treaties  when  difficulties  shall  arise,  and  conciliate  all  our  differ 
ences."'  This  benevolent  scheme  may  have  been  suggested  by 
or  copied  after  the  European  congresses  at  Laibach,  Verona, 
and  elsewhere,  but  that  it  was  well  conceived  there  can  be  no 
question.  Had  the  United  States  participated,  this  country 
would  undoubtedly  have  dominated  the  congress  and  by  common 
consent  would  have  been  invested  with  a  certain  moral  hegemony 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  359 

of  the  Americans.  But  it  was  not  invited  by  Bolivar,  because 
he  feared  that  it  would  not  accept,  and  because  he  knew,  also, 
that  he  and  his  principles  were  not  regarded  with  favor  in  this 
country.  For  he  was  an  enemy  of  human  slavery.  "All, 
whether  white  or  black,"  he  said,  "are  equally  entitled  to  the 
just  recompense  of  valor,  of  honor,  of  intelligence,  of  sacrifice, 
and  of  virtue. ' '  It  was  his  purpose  to  continue  his  efforts  until 
Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and  other  countries  were  liberated  and  human 
slavery  was  banished  from  the  Americas.  In  this  ambition  he 
recognized  the  United  States  as  his  chief  obstacle.  He  knew, 
moreover,  that  it  was  because  of  his  opposition  to  slavery  that 
the  United  States  had  given  him  so  little  sympathy  and  aid 
in  his  struggles  in  South  America. 

Colombia  was  the  first  to  accept  the  invitation,  and  Mexico, 
which  had  become  a  republic,  the  second;  and  then  those  two 
powers  united  in  extending  to  the  United  States  the  invitation 
which  Bolivar  himself  had  not  given.  President  Adams,  the 
great  pioneer  of  human  freedom  in  the  United  States,  gladly 
accepted  it,  as  another  important  step  in  the  policy  which  had 
been  begun  with  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  as  calculated  to 
make  that  doctrine  not  merely  a  formal  pronouncement  but  a 
vital  force  and  method  of  life.  In  his  annual  message  of  De 
cember  6,  1825,  he  announced  to  Congress  the  receipt  and  ac 
ceptance  of  the  invitation.  But  Congress,  then  under  pro- 
slavery  domination,  received  the  announcement  with  marked 
disfavor.  Twenty  days  later  he  sent  a  special  message,  explain 
ing  the  purpose  of  the  congress  and  the  reasons  why  the 
United  States  ought  to  participate  in  it.  Having  been  the  first 
to  recognize  the  independence  of  the  Latin  American  States,  he 
said,  and  the  first  to  sympathize  with  them  so  far  as  was  com 
patible  with  our  neutral  duties,  we  had  laid  the  foundations 
of  future  intercourse  with  them  in  the  broadest  principles  of 
reciprocity  and  the  most  cordial  feelings  of  fraternal  friend 
ship.  "To  extend  those  principles  to  all  our  commercial  rela 
tions  with  them,  and  to  hand  down  that  friendship  to  future 
ages,  is  congenial  to  the  highest  policy  of  this  union,  as  it  will 
be  to  all  those  nations  and  their  posterity."  In  confidence  that 
those  sentiments  would  meet  the  approval  of  the  Senate,  he 
nominated  two  envoys  and  a  secretary,  to  represent  the  United 


360  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

States  at  the  congress.  Henry  Clay,  as  secretary  of  state,  wrote 
at  the  same  time  a  long  and  forceful  letter  to  the  same  effect; 
perhaps  the  ablest  of  all  his  state  documents;  in  which  he 
characterized  the  Panama  Congress  as  "the  boundary  stone  of 
a  new  epoch  in  the  world's  history."  Adams  in  subsequent 
messages  urged  senatorial  approval  of  the  scheme.  He  doubted, 
he  said,  whether  for  centuries  to  come  there  would  again  be 
offered  to  this  nation  such  a  favorable  opportunity  for  sub 
serving  the  benevolent  purposes  of  Divine  Providence  and  dis 
pensing  the  promised  blessings  of  the  Redeemer  of  mankind. 

But  Adams  and  Clay  did  not  appreciate  the  power  of  the 
slave-holding  interests  of  our  Southern  States,  nor  the  extent 
to  which,  for  the  sake  of  those  sordid  interests,  senators  were 
ready  to  sacrifice  the  external  interests  of  the  whole  nation  and 
the  welfare  of  the  Western  Hemisphere.  The  pro-slavery  sena 
tors  saw  in  the  Panama  Congress  a  direct  menace  to  their 
11  peculiar  institution."  They  recalled  the  Negro  revolution  in 
Haiti  and  saw  in  it  a  forecast  of  what  would  happen  in  the 
United  States  if  there  were  any  meddling  with  the  "divine 
right"  to  enslave  the  Negro.  The  example  of  Haiti,  said  their 
most  eloquent  spokesman,  Hayne  of  South  Carolina,  was  fatal 
to  our  repose.  Speaking  of  the  Latin  "American  republics  gen 
erally,  he  said:  "Those  governments  have  proclaimed  the 
principles  of  liberty  and  equality,  and  have  marched  to  victory 
under  the  banner  of  universal  emancipation."  For  that  reason 
he  and  his  pro-slavery  colleagues  opposed  American  representa 
tion  or  participation  in  the  congress.  In  their  view  the  nation 
which  had  come  into  being  on  the  principle  that  all  men  are 
created  equal  had  no  place  in  the  company  of  States  which  pro 
claimed  and  practised  that  self -same  principle. 

The  foreign  relations  committee  of  the  Senate,  of  which 
Mason  of  Virginia  was  chairman,  accordingly  reported  a  resolu 
tion  to  the  effect  that  it  was  not  expedient  for  the  United 
States  to  send  any  ministers  to  the  Congress  at  Panama,  and 
supported  it  in  a  long  document  full  of  sophistry  and  self- 
stultification.  The  declarations  were  made  that  for  us  to  par 
ticipate  in  the  congress  would  be  in  conflict  with  the  whole 
course  of  policy  hitherto  pursued  by  the  United  States ;  that  be 
cause  of  our  great  interest  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  we  ought  not 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  361 

to  discuss  the  destinies  of  those  islands,  which  Colombia  and 
Mexico  were  threatening  to  invade  and  conquer;  and  that  no 
compacts  were  needed  to  promote  the  growth  of  commercial 
relations.  It  was  also  plainly  revealed  that  the  chief  reason 
for  disapproving  participation  in  the  congress  was  the  anti- 
slavery  principles  of  the  other  States,  though  disinclination  to 
enter  into  "entangling  alliances"  was  put  forward  as  the  stalk 
ing  horse.  In  the  debates  which  ensued  in  both  Houses  of  Con 
gress  factional  passions  ran  high,  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was 
much  discussed.  Polk  and  Buchanan,  who  afterward,  as  presi 
dents,  far  out-Monroed  Monroe  himself  in  advocacy  and  applica 
tion  of  his  doctrine,  at  this  time  insisted  upon  its  strictest  and 
narrowest  interpretation.  Buchanan  introduced  a  resolution, 
which  was  passed  by  the  House,  declaring  that  the  United  States 
ought  not  to  enter  into  any  joint  declaration  with  the  South 
American  republics  "for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  inter 
ference  of  any  of  the  European  powers  with  their  independence 
or  form  of  government,"  nor  to  enter  into  any  compact  for  the 
purpose  of  preventing  colonization  upon  the  continents  of 
America.  This  was  provoked  by  the  proposal  by  Bolivar  that 
the  Congress  of  Panama  should  unite  in  a  reaffirmation  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  as  a  policy  of  all  the  American  States.  It 
was,  of  course,  argued  that  Buchanan's  resolution  was  not  a 
repudiation  of  the  doctrine,  but  was  really  a  confirmation  of  it, 
in  that  it  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  doctrine  was  intended 
solely  for  the  protection  of  the  United  States  and  not  for  that 
of  other  countries.  It  was  held  that  it  would  be  unwise  for  us 
to  enter  into  a  compact  which  might  give  to  our  allies  the  de 
cision  of  the  question  whether  some  given  act  was  inimical 
to  our  own  peace  and  safety. 

In  the  end  the  Senate  did  ratify  the  nominations  of  envoys, 
and  Congress  voted  an  appropriation  for  their  expenses.  But 
the  delay  had  been  so  great  that  the  Panama  Congress  had 
adjourned  before  the  envoys  reached  it.  The  United  States  was 
therefore  not  represented  in  it,  and  suffered  the  imputation 
of  being  unsympathetic  toward  it.  Because  of  the  conduct  of 
the  United  States,  moreover,  the  congress  was  little  better  than 
a  failure.  The  only  nations  represented  at  it  were  Mexico, 
Colombia,  Peru,  and  Central  America.  Few  international 


362  AMERICA'S  FOEEIGN  RELATIONS 

bodies  have  ever  had  a  program  of  equal  merit,  in  benevo 
lence  and  practical  statesmanship;  a  program  which  antici 
pated  half  of  the  progress  toward  international  peace  and 
justice  which  the  whole  world  has  since  made.  But  the  outcome 
of  the  congress  was  inconclusive  and  futile,  chiefly  because  of 
the  lack  of  precisely  that  authoritative  leadership  which  at  that 
time  the  United  States  alone  could  have  supplied;  and  it  ad 
journed  in  disappointment  among  its  members  and  with  an  un 
pleasant  feeling  throughout  Latin  America  that  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  had  been  merely  a  "  resounding  and  glittering  gen 
erality"  which  the  United  States  had  no  thought  of  putting 
into  vital  and  effective  force. 

An  important  question  of  foreign  policy  was  meantime  raised 
in  connection  with  Cuba.  The  South  American  States  were 
casting  interested  eyes  upon  that  island  and  Porto  Rico,  and 
were  planning  either  to  conquer  them  from  Spain  or  to  incite 
and  to  assist  them  to  establish  their  independence.  But  the 
proximity  of  the  islands  to  the  British  and  French  possessions 
in  the  West  Indies  caused  those  powers  also  to  view  them  with 
interest,  and  to  desire  that,  if  they  could  not  take  them  for 
themselves,  at  least  no  other  power  should  take  them  from  Spain. 
Accordingly,  in  August,  1825,  the  British  government  laid  before 
King,  the  American  minister  in  London,  a  proposal  that 
America  should  unite  with  Great  Britain  and  France  in  an  un 
dertaking  that  neither  of  the  three  would  take  Cuba  for  itself 
or  would  acquiesce  in  the  taking  of  it  by  either  of  the  others. 
This  was  promptly  transmitted  to  Washington,  and  was  de 
clined  by  Adams  on  several  grounds.  One  was  that  thus  prac 
tically  to  guarantee  Spain  in  the  possession  of  Cuba  and  Porto 
Rico  might  encourage  that  country  to  jfrolong  indefinitely  its 
struggle  with  its  colonies.  Another  was,  that  the  course  already 
pursued  by  this  country  made  it  unnecessary  for  it  to  assume 
any  such  obligations;  it  having  made  it  clear  by  both  declara 
tion  and  practice  that  it  did  not  mean  to  seize  Cuba  for  itself 
and  would  not  permit  the  seizure  of  it  by  another  power.  There 
was  no  fear  that  Great  Britain  would  seize  the  island,  since  her 
so  doing  would  certainly  cause  a  rupture  with  the  United  States. 
As  for  France,  there  was  reason  to  suspect  her  of  designs  upon 
Cuba,  and  there  would  be  no  great  objection  to  having  her  bound 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  363 

not  to  fulfil  them.  But  negotiations  were  in  progress  to  secure 
peace  between  Spain  and  her  colonies  through  Russian  media 
tion,  and  until  their  result  was  ascertained  the  United  States 
would  do  nothing  in  the  matter.  France  at  first  indicated  a 
willingness  to  accept  the  British  proposal  and  to  bind  herself 
to  stay  out  of  Cuba;  but  then  suddenly  changed  her  attitude 
and  refused  to  enter  any  such  agreement.  As  a  result  the 
American  government,  in  September,  1825,  declined  to  unite 
with  Great  Britain  in  renewing  the  invitation  to  France ;  and  in 
addition  instructed  its  minister  in  Paris  to  inform  the  French 
government  that  under  no  contingency,  either  with  or  without 
the  consent  of  Spain,  would  this  country  permit  French  occupa 
tion  of  the  two  islands.  While,  therefore,  there  was  no  definite 
and  unqualified  refusal,  or  principle,  to  enter  with  European 
powers  into  a  joint  guarantee  concerning  American  territory, 
there  was  an  explicit  declaration  that  the  United  States,  acting 
alone,  would  prevent  any  further  acquisition  of  adjacent  Ameri 
can  territory  by  a  European  power,  or  transfer  of  it  from  one 
European  power  to  another. 

There  also  arose  in  this  country  a  strong  opposition  to  any 
schemes  of  acquisition  of  Cuba  by  one  of  the  American  repub 
lics.  Following  close  upon  the  correspondence  concerning  the 
proposed  tripartite  guarantee,  Clay  addressed  a  note  to  the 
Colombian  and  Mexican  ministers,  urging  them  to  prevail  upon 
their  respective  governments  to  suspend  the  expeditions  which 
they  were  fitting  out  against  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  at  least  until 
after  the  Congress  of  Panama  had  met  and  had  expressed  itself 
concerning  the  disposition  of  those  islands.  This  was  urged  in 
the  belief  that  an  attack  upon  Cuba  would  make  it  more  difficult 
to  negotiate  peace  between  Spain  and  South  America,  and  for 
some  other  reasons.  The  Colombian  government  acceded  to  the 
request,  and  informed  to  that  effect  the  Russian  government, 
which  was  then  striving  to  mediate  between  Spain  and  the  Latin 
American  States.  Mexico,  on  the  contrary,  received  the  request 
unfavorably,  but  did  not  proceed  with  the  expedition.  It  is 
doubtless  not  unfair  or  unreasonable,  however,  to  assume  that 
the  United  States  government  was  in  fact  chiefly  moved  in  the 
matter  by  a  consideration  which  could  not  well  be  openly  pro 
claimed.  That  is,  its  desire  and  even  its  intention  to  secure 


364  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

those  islands  for  itself.  Adams,  as  secretary  of  state  under 
Monroe,  had  already  expressed  confidence  that  Cuba  would  in 
time  gravitate  to  the  United  States,  and  there  is  no  hint  that 
he  relinquished  that  expectation  when  he  became  President.  A 
few  years  later,  in  1829,  Van  Buren,  secretary  of  state  in  Jack 
son's  administration,  openly  admitted  still  another  reason  for 
desiring  no  change  in  the  ownership  of  Cuba  at  that  time.  That 
had  to  do  with  the  slavery  question.  So  long  as  Spain  held 
Cuba,  slavery  would  be  maintained.  But  if  any  other  power 
took  the  island,  that  "peculiar  institution"  would  be  abolished, 
and  the  effect  of  sucli  abolition  "could  not  but  be  very  sensibly 
felt  upon  the  adjacent  shores  of  the  United  States." 

Brazil  was  the  one  monarchy  among  all  the  independent  States 
of  Latin  America,  but  it  was  treated  by  the  United  States  much 
the  same  as  were  the  republics.  Early  in  1825  the  Brazilian 
government  proposed  to  this  country  an  alliance,  under  which 
the  United  States  should  aid  Brazil  against  any  foreign  power 
which  might  assist  Portugal  in  trying  to  reestablish  her  sov 
ereignty,  and  also  against  Portugal  herself  if  she  should  invade 
Brazil.  Clay  replied  that  the  prospect  of  a  speedy  conclusion 
of  peace  between  Brazil  and  Portugal  seemed  to  make  such  an 
arrangement  unnecessary ;  but  that  if  European  powers  should 
renew  their  menace  against^  Brazil  or  any  other  American  State, 
this  country  would  give  to  the  case  the  consideration  which  it 
deserved.  It  was  the  policy  of  this  country,  he  added,  not  to 
intervene  in  a  war  which  was  confined  to  the  parent  country 
and  its  former  colony,  but  to  remain  neutral  and  to  extend 
friendship  and  justice  equally  to  both.  A  few  years  later, 
in  1828,  the  United  States  declined  to  intervene  in  a  war  be 
tween  Argentina  and  Brazil,  even  though  the  one  was  a  re 
public  and  the  other  an  empire;  holding  that  it  was  a  war 
strictly  American  in  its  origin  and  its  object,  in  which  the  allies 
of  Europe  had  taken  no  part,  and  that  therefore  it  presented 
no  analogy  to  the  case  which  the  Monroe  Doctrine  anticipated. 
In  the  West  Indies  the  United  States  was  still  suffering  from 
the  restrictions  upon  trade  which  were  imposed  by  the  British 
shipping  laws.  The  long-established  policy  of  Great  Britain  was 
to  keep  in  her  own  hands  the  commerce  of  her  colonies,  and 
particularly  those  in  the  West  Indies.  Repeated  attempts  had 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  365 

been  made,  beginning  in  the  administration  of  Washington,  to 
secure  the  opening  of  the  British  West  Indian  ports  to  American 
vessels,  but  in  vain.  Commercial  treaties  in  1815  and  1818  im 
proved  our  relations  in  some  respects,  but  direct  trade  with  the 
West  Indies,  which  would  have  been  highly  profitable  to  this 
country,  remained  forbidden.  The  only  way  in  which  it  could 
be  conducted  was  by  smuggling.  In  1822,  Parliament  opened 
certain  West  Indian  ports  to  American  trade,  but  imposed 
heavy  customs  duties  and  excluded  some  important  classes  of 
goods.  The  concessions  granted  were  valuable,  however,  and  in 
return  Congress  opened  American  ports  to  direct  trade  between 
this  country  and  the  West  Indies  in  British  vessels.  The 
promise  of  better  relations  which  was  thus  made  was  not,  how 
ever,  at  once  fulfilled,  the  fault  lying  largely  with  the  American 
Congress.  In  1825,  Parliament  offered  to  open  direct  foreign 
trade  in  the  West  Indies  to  the  vessels  of  those  countries  which 
granted  to  Great  Britain  the  privileges  of  the  "most  favored 
nation,"  and  proposed  that  American  vessels  in  Canadian  ports 
and  British  vessels  in  American  ports  should  pay  the  same  ton 
nage  dues.  The  United  States  Congress  demurred  to  this  prac 
tical  offer  of  commercial  reciprocity,  or  at  least  failed  to  accept 
it,  whereupon  in  1826  the  British  government  by  an  order  in 
council  again  closed  all  West  Indian  ports  against  American 
commerce.  Gallatin,  who  was  then  appointed  minister  to  Eng 
land  in  place  of  Rufus  King,  whose  health  had  failed,  tried 
to  get  this  order  withdrawn,  but  was  somewhat  curtly  informed 
by  Canning  that  the  matter  was  closed  and  that  the  British  gov 
ernment  would  not  reopen  discussion  of  it.  In  March,  1827, 
Adams  issued  a  proclamation  renewing  the  prohibitions  of  1818 
and  1820,  under  which  British  vessels  could  not  ply  between 
American  and  British  West  Indian  ports.  The  result  was  that 
all  direct  trade  between  American  and  British  West  Indian 
ports,  in  either  American  or  British  vessels,  was  abolished. 
Upon  the  death  of  Canning,  soon  after,  Lord  Goderich  became 
prime  minister,  and  made  a  treaty  with  Gallatin  restoring  the 
conditions  which  had  been  established  in  1815.  This  was  not 
a  satisfactory  conclusion  of  the  matter,  though  it  was  dignified 
and  friendly  and  it  left  the  way  open  for  future  negotiations. 
The  loss  of  or  the  failure  to  secure  the  West  India  trade  was, 


366  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

however,  severely  felt  in  the  United  States,  and  provoked  no 
small  degree  of  displeasure  toward  the  Adams  administration. 
A  similar  disposition  was  made  by  Adams  and  Clay  of  the 
dispute  over  the  Oregon  territory.  The  modus  vivendi  estab 
lished  in  1818  for  ten  years  was  renewed  for  another  such  term, 
during  which  the  whole  territory  was  to  be  open  to  settlement 
from  both  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  More  progress 
was  made,  however,  with  the  settlement  of  the  northeastern 
boundary  question,  between  Maine  and  New  Brunswick.  Galla- 
tin  in  1827  effected  an  agreement  under  which  the  questions  at 
issue  were  to  be  submitted  to  arbitration.  There  was  much 
debate  over  the  selection  of  an  arbitrator,  the  King  of  Prussia 
and  the  Emperor  of  Russia  being  suggested  but  not  accepted. 
Finally,  in  April,  1828,  after  the  exchange  of  ratifications  of 
the  convention,  the  King  of  the  Netherlands  was  mutually  agreed 
upon,  and  he  consented  to  act.  Gallatin  conducted  the  case  for 
the  United  States  with  the  consummate  skill  and  unfailing  tact 
which  made  him  one  of  the  most  efficient  American  diplomats 
of  his  time,  and  the  whole  matter  was  elucidated  and  discussed 
perhaps  more  thoroughly  than  any  other  of  the  kind  in  the  his 
tory  of  arbitrations.  The  arbitral  verdict  was  not  announced 
until  January,  1831,  and  it  then  made  no  positive  award,  but 
recommended  that  there  be  given  to  the  United  States  7908 
and  to  Great  Britain  4119  square  miles  of  the  disputed  region 
to  which  both  had  laid  claim.  William  Pitt  Preble  of  Maine, 
who  had  been  Gallatin 's  associate  in  conducting  the  case,  was 
then  the  American  minister  at  The  Hague,  and  he  immediately 
protested  against  the  verdict,  on  the  ground  that  the  arbitrator 
had  exceeded  his  powers.  The  British  government  was  not  un 
willing  to  abide  by  the  verdict,  but  it  intimated  to  the  United 
States  that  it  would  not  insist  upon  so  doing  but  would  resume 
direct  negotiations  with  a  view  to  its  modification.  Over  this 
the  United  States  hesitated.  Preble 's  protest  had  been  made 
entirely  on  his  own  responsibility  and  without  authorization 
from  Washington,  and  President  Jackson — for  it  was  now  in  his 
administration — was  much  inclined  to  disavow  it  and  to  accept 
the  recommendatory  award  as  conclusive.  But  New  England 
sentiment  strongly  supported  Preble  in  his  protest,  and  Jackson, 
though  he  had  little  regard  for  that  part  of  the  Union,  finally 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  367 

determined  to  submit  the  matter  to  the  Senate.  That  body  con 
sidered  the  case  for  six  months  and  then,  by  an  overwhelming 
vote,  declared  against  acceptance  of  the  award  and  in  favor  of 
renewing  direct  negotiations  with  Great  Britain.  To  this  the 
British  government  cordially  acceded,  and  it  was  mutually 
agreed  that  until  a  final  determination  was  effected  neither  party 
would  attempt  to  exercise  jurisdiction  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
territory  which  it  actually  possessed. 

During  the  remainder  of  the  eight  years  of  Jackson's  admin 
istration  frequent  attempts  were  made  to  settle  the  controversy 
but  without  result.  The  United  States  was  much  hampered 
in  its  efforts  by  the  State  of  Maine,  which  insisted  upon  what  it 
claimed  as  its  sovereign  rights.  The  Federal  Government  en 
deavored  to  make  a  compact  with  the  state  government,  under 
which  the  former  would  have  a  free  hand  and  the  latter  would 
be  indemnified  for  the  relinquishment  of  any  territory  to  which 
it  laid  claim.  Such  an  agreement  was  indeed  signed  in  1832, 
but  was  never  ratified.  In  the  succeeding  administration,  of 
Van  Buren,  attempts  at  settlement  were  renewed,  but  the  State 
of  Maine,  by  legislative  resolution,  took  a  still  more  resolute 
and  uncompromising  attitude.  It  insisted  that  the  boundary 
line  prescribed  in  the  treaty  of  1783  should  be  maintained,  that 
no  subsequent  arbitration  should  be  recognized,  and  that  the 
United  States,  either  with  or  without  British  cooperation,  should 
promptly  proceed  to  its  survey  and  delimitation.  Of  course 
passions  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  disputed  territory  rose 
higher  and  higher  until  in  1838-39  they  culminated  in  the  so- 
called  "Restook"  or  Aroostook  War.  The  State  authorities  of 
Maine  sent  an  agent  with  a  posse  to  arrest  British  subjects  who 
were  cutting  timber,  and  the  agent  was  seized  by  the  New 
Brunswick  authorities  and  imprisoned.  Maine  raised  a  large 
civil  posse,  erected  fortifications,  and  appropriated  $800,000  for 
the  governor  to  use  at  his  discretion  for  military  defense.  Nor 
was  the  Federal  Government  less  aggressive.  Congress  au 
thorized  the  President  to  call  out  the  militia  and  to  enlist  50,000 
volunteers,  and  voted  him  an  extra  credit  of  $10,000,000  for  the 
purpose.  Happily  war  was  averted  by  a  man  of  war.  General 
Scott  was  sent  to  the  scene,  and  he  soon  persuaded  the  authori 
ties  of  both  Maine  and  New  Brunswick  to  cease  their  bickerings 


368  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

and  to  keep  the  peace.  At  his  suggestion  the  governors  of 
Maine  and  New  Brunswick  issued  public  declarations,  disclaim 
ing  any  intention  of  aggressiveness  or  belligerence. 

So  the  matter  rested  until  the  spring  of  1841,  when  Tyler  was 
President  and  Daniel  Webster  was  secretary  of  state.  Webster, 
who  was  familiar  with  the  controversy,  deprecated  the  tedious 
plan  of  new  surveys  and  arbitration,  to  which  the  two  govern 
ments  seemed  inclined,  and  urged  instead  the  shorter  and  simpler 
course  of  direct  negotiation  on  the  basis  of  known  facts.  To 
this  proposal  the  British  government  promptly  responded  by 
sending  Lord  Ashburton  hither  with  full  powers  to  negotiate 
settlements  of  all  matters  in  dispute  between  the  two  coun 
tries.  Ashburton  reached  Washington  in  April,  1842,  and  ne 
gotiations  were  promptly  begun.  For  some  weeks  they  were 
conducted  in  writing,  and  little  was  accomplished.  Then 
Webster  and  Ashburton  got  together  and  talked  face  to  face, 
and  in  a  few  days  a  settlement  was  reached.  The  United  States 
was  to  get  7015  and  Great  Britain  4012  square  miles  of  the  dis 
puted  territory.  This  division  was  thus  apparently  less  favor 
able  to  this  country  than  that  which  had  been  proposed  by  the 
King  of  the  Netherlands,  but  it  was  explained  that  the  land 
assigned  to  New  Brunswick  was  chiefly  mountainous,  while  that 
given  to  Maine  was  much  more  valuable,  so  that  this  country 
was  really  getting  about  four  fifths  of  the  total  value  of  the 
region.  The  United  States  government  undertook,  also,  to  pay 
the  States  of  Maine  and  Massachusetts  each  $150,000  indemnity, 
and  their  expenses  for  civil  posses  and  surveys.  On  these  terms 
a  treaty,  known  by  the  names  of  its  makers  as  the  Webster- 
Ashburton  treaty,  was  signed  on  August  9,  1842.  This  instru 
ment  defined  the  boundary  between  Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  and  New  York  on  the  one  hand,  and  Canada  on  the 
other,  and  also  the  boundary  line  from  Lake  Huron  through 
St.  Mary's  River  and  Lake  Superior  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods 
and  thence  to  the  Rocky  Mountains;  and  it  provided  for  the 
free  navigation  of  the  St.  John  River  and  other  international 
boundary  waters.  In  addition  it  dealt  with  two  important  topics 
entirely  separate  and  remote  from  the  boundary  question.  The 
signatory  powers  bound  themselves  each  to  maintain  on  the 
coast  of  Africa  an  adequate  naval  force  for  the  suppression 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  369 

of  the  slave  trade,  and  to  use  all  proper  influences  to  persuade 
all  other  countries  to  close  slave  markets  at  once  and  forever. 
They  also  agreed  to  the  extradition  of  all  persons  charged  with 
actual  or  attempted  murder,  piracy,  arson,  robbery,  or  forgery. 
The  treaty  met  with  violent  opposition  in  both  countries.  In 
the  United  States  Senate  it  was  attacked  because  of  its  pro 
visions  concerning  the  slave  trade  and  extradition  of  criminals ; 
yet  it  was  ratified  by  an  overwhelming  vote.  In  England  it  was 
condemned  for  its  concessions  to  America.  Lord  Palmerston 
called  it  the  "Ashburton  capitulation"  and  insinuated  that  Lord 
Ashburton  in  the  making  of  it  had  been  influenced  by  his  wife, 
who  was  an  American !  Nevertheless  the  treaty  went  into  effect, 
to  the  great  good  of  both  the  signatory  powers. 

To  revert  to  the  Adams  administration.  Among  the  diplo 
matic  questions  which  it  found  awaiting  settlement  was  one 
which  had  been  left  by  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  namely,  that  of  in 
demnity  for  the  slaves  which  were  carried  off  by  the  British 
in  the  "War  of  1812.  After  years  of  fruitless  negotiation  this 
had  been  submitted  to  the  arbitration  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia, 
who  decided  in  favor  of  the  American  claim.  But  the  British 
government  demurred,  and  new  negotiations  followed.  Finally, 
a  lump  sum  was  paid  to  this  country  in  1827  and  the  matter 
was  ended.  The  next  year,  however,  the  slave  question  arose 
between  the  two  countries  in  another  form.  Fugitive  slaves 
from  America  were  taking  refuge  in  Canada,  and  on  May  10, 
1828,  the  House  of  Representatives  asked  the  President  to  enter 
into  negotiations  with  the  British  government  for  their  sur 
render.  This  must  have  been  distasteful  to  Adams,  and  only  less 
so  to  Clay  and  Gallatin.  Nevertheless  the  desired  action  was  un 
dertaken.  Clay,  as  secretary  of  state,  directed  Gallatin,  as  min 
ister  to  Great  Britain,  to  propose  to  the  British  government 
"the  mutual  surrender  of  deserters  from  the  military  and  naval 
service,"  and  "a  mutual  surrender  of  all  persons  held  to  service 
of  labor."  The  former  proposal  was  expected  to  appeal  to 
Great  Britain,  which  suffered  much  from  desertions,  while  of 
course  the  latter  was  for  the  benefit  of  American  slaveholders. 
The  two  taken  together  were  on  the  whole  among  the  most  dis 
creditable  propositions  ever  made  in  American  diplomacy.  It 
was  bad  enough  for  a  republic  to  offer  to  surrender  fugitives 

VOL.  I — 24 


370  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

from  the  notorious  cruelty  of  the  military  and  naval  services 
of  a  monarchy — in  the  days  when  for  trivial  faults  men  were 
flogged  into  mincemeat.  It  was  even  worse  for  a  professedly 
free  country  to  ask  a  less  free  country  to  seize  and  to  return  its 
''bondsmen  flying  from  slavery's  hateful  hell."  It  is  impos 
sible  to  imagine  that  Adams  regarded  it  otherwise  than  with 
detestation.  Clay  displayed  no  earnestness  or  power  of  argu 
ment  in  his  despatches,  and  Gallatin  presented  the  matter  to  the 
British  government  in  the  most  perfunctory  manner.  Doubt 
less  all  three  hoped  and  expected  that  the  proposal  would  be  re 
jected,  as  of  course  it  was.  Without  hesitation  the  British  gov 
ernment  replied  that  it  was  "utterly  impossible  to  agree  to  a 
stipulation  for  the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves." 

With  the  accession  of  Andrew  Jackson  to  the  Presidency,  in 
1829,  a  new  era  began  in  American  domestic  politics  and  gov 
ernment,  and  for  a  time  there  was  a  scarcely  less  striking  change 
in  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs.  This  was  manifested  in  two 
notable  incidents,  the  first  of  which  concerned  our  relations  with 
Great  Britain.  The  Monroe  and  Adams  administrations,  as  al 
ready  related,  had  persistently  but  ineffectually  tried  to  improve 
our  commercial  relations  with  that  country,  particularly  so  as 
to  secure  the  opening  of  the  West  Indies  to  American  commerce. 
Under  Jackson,  with  Martin  Van  Buren  as  secretary  of  state 
and  Louis  McLane  as  minister  to  Great  Britain,  the  efforts  were 
renewed,  but  on  an  entirely  different  basis.  On  July  20,  1829, 
Van  Buren  sent  to  McLane  probably  the  most  remarkable  and 
most  discreditable  letter  of  instructions  ever  issued  by  an 
American  secretary  of  state.  "You  will,"  he  wrote,  "be  able 
to  tell  the  British  minister  that  you  and  I,  and  the  leading  per 
sons  in  this  administration,  have  opposed  the  course  heretofore 
pursued  by  the  Government  and  the  country  on  the  subject 
of  the  colonial  trade.  Be  sure  to  let  him  know  that,  on  that 
subject,  we  have  held  with  England  and  not  with  our  own 
government."  He  added  that  the  matter  had  been  submitted 
to  the  people  at  the  last  general  election,  and  that  they  had 
repudiated  the  policy  of  Adams. 

This  last  statement  was  false,  for  the  question  had  scarcely 
entered  into  the  electoral  campaign,  and  there  had  of  course 
been  nothing  remotely  resembling  a  plebiscite  upon  it.  But 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  371 

even  had  it  been  true,  it  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  anything 
more  indecent  than  the  making  of  such  representations  to  a 
foreign  government  and  the  taking  of  it  into  the  rivalries  of 
domestic  politics.  The  letter  was  a  notification  to  the  British 
government  that  our  foreign  relations  were  governed  by  con 
siderations  of  domestic  partizanship  and  that  our  policy  toward 
any  foreign  country  was  liable  to  be  reversed  at  any  time  on 
account  of  a  change  of  domestic  politics.  Jackson  was  the  first 
President  who  announced  and  practised  the  spoils  system  and 
made  a  " clean  sweep"  of  all  office  holders  in  order  to  fill  the 
places  with  his  own  friends  and  political  retainers,  and  it  seemed 
in  this  incident  to  be  his  policy  similarly  to  make  a  "  clean 
sweep"  in  foreign  policies  and  relations.  The  letter  was  the 
more  remarkable  because  its  author,  Van  Buren,  while  a  con 
summate  politician,  was  a  man  of  culture,  of  tact,  and  of  diplo 
matic  skill,  who  should  have  realized  the  gross  impropriety  of 
such  an  utterance.  We  can  only  suppose  that  the  violence  of 
partizan  rancor,  and  the  fury  of  hatred  which  the  whole  Jack 
son  administration  had  for  John  Quincy  Adams  and  all  his 
works,  blinded  his  better  judgment. 

Almost  at  the  same  time  with  this  a  violent  personal  and  social 
quarrel  arose  in  Washington,  over  the  recognition  of  the  wife 
of  a  member  of  the  cabinet.  Because  of  a  scandal  over  the 
circumstances  of  her  marriage,  the  ladies  of  official  society, 
including  the  President's  niece,  the  wife  of  the  vice-president, 
and  the  wives  of  the  other  cabinet  ministers,  refused  to  recognize 
her.  The  President,  who  was  a  widower,  stoutly  championed 
her,  and  so  did  Van  Buren,  who  was  also  a  widower  without 
daughters.  The  British  and  Russian  ministers  were  bachelors, 
and  they  invited  her  to  balls  at  their  legations;  but  the  wives 
of  the  other  ministers  refused  to  dance  in  the  same  cotillion 
with  her  or  to  sit  near  her  at  table,  on  which  account  Jackson 
threatened  to  have  one  of  the  ministers  recalled.  The  incident 
caused  a  dissolution  of  the  cabinet.  Edward  Livingston  was 
made  secretary  of  state  in  Van  Buren 's  place,  and  the  President 
showed  his  appreciation  of  Van  Buren 's  conduct  in  the  social 
feud  by  rewarding  him  with  the  appointment  of  minister  to 
Great  Britain,  which  the  former  secretary  coveted.  Van  Buren 
went  to  London  and  acquitted  himself  creditably,  but  soon  had 


372  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

to  return  for  the  reason  that  the  Senate,  under  the  lead  of 
Daniel  Webster,  refused  to  ratify  his  appointment.  The  chief 
reason  for  its  refusal  was  the  letter  to  McLane,  which  we  have 
quoted.  Speaking  of  it,  Webster  said  in  the  Senate:  "I  think 
these  instructions  derogatory,  in  a  high  degree,  to  the  character 
and  the  honor  of  the  country.  I  think  they  show  a  manifest 
disposition  in  the  writer  of  them  to  establish  a  distinction  be 
tween  his  country  and  his  party ;  to  place  that  party  above  the 
country;  to  make  interest  at  a  foreign  court  for  that  party 
rather  than  for  the  country;  to  persuade  the  English  ministry 
and  the  English  monarch  that  they  have  an  interest  in  main 
taining  in  the  United  States  the  ascendancy  of  the  party  to 
which  the  writer  belongs.  I  cannot  be  of  the  opinion  that  the 
author  of  those  instructions  is  a  proper  representative  of  the 
United  States  at  that  court.  In  the  presence  of  foreign  courts, 
amidst  the  monarchies  of  Europe,  the  American  minister  is  to 
stand  up  for  his  country ;  he  is  to  forget  self,  and  forget  party. ' ' 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  letter  and  its  author  richly 
merited  Webster's  strictures,  and  it  is  probable  that  these  were 
taken  to  heart  by  the  President  as  well  as  by  Van  Buren  him 
self,  and  that  Webster's  vigorous  and  enlightened  words  served 
to  check  a  tendency  which  otherwise  might  have  degraded  our 
diplomacy  to  partizan  ends  almost  as  much  as  the  civil  service 
was  thus  prostituted. 

Despite  these  untoward  occurrences,  however,  the  diplomacy 
of  Jackson's  administration  was  not  devoid  of  profit.  McLane, 
though  acting  under  that  scandalous  letter  of  instructions, 
effected  a  satisfactory  readjustment  of  our  commercial  relations 
with  Great  Britain.  This  was  done,  however,  not  by  means  of 
a  treaty,  but  through  legislation,  by  Congress  on  the  one  hand 
and  Parliament  on  the  other.  McLane  proposed  to  the  British 
government  a  renewal  of  trade  relations  on  the  basis  of  that 
act  of  Parliament  of  1825  to  which  the  American  Congress  had 
failed  to  respond;  explaining  that  this  country  was  prepared 
to  accept  as  a  privilege  what  it  had  formerly  demanded  as  a 
right.  In  his  annual  message  in  December  following  Jackson 
made  complimentary  references  to  Great  Britain  which  were 
almost  fulsome.  In  the  spring  of  1830  he  had  Van  Buren  draft 
a  communication  to  Congress  asking  that  a  bill  be  prepared  pro- 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  373 

viding  for  nonintercourse  between  the  United  States  and  Canada, 
and  for  the  equipment  of  a  sufficient  revenue-cutter  force 
to  make  it  effective.  At  almost  the  same  time  he  had  Congress 
authorize  him  to  proclaim  American  ports  open  to  British  -?  ? 
colonial  trade  whenever  he  was  satisfied  that  British  colonial 
ports  were  open  to  American  commerce.  The  latter  act  was 
effective  and  it  was  unnecessary  to  resort  to  the  former.  Early 
in  October,  Jackson  was  able  to  issue  the  proclamation.  There 
after  American  vessels  were  free  to  trade  in  British  West  Indian 
ports,  excepting  between  them  and  other  British  ports.  The 
result  was,  of  course,  an  immediate  and  enormous  increase  of 
trade.  In  1830  we  imported  from  the  West  Indies  goods  to  the 
amount  of  only  $101,843,  and  exported  thither  only  $140 ;  while 
in  the  very  next  year  the  figures  rose  respectively  to  $873,855 
and  $1,439,593.  For  this  achievement  Jackson's  administra 
tion  received  and  deserved  much  praise;  though  its  beneficence 
cannot  condone  the  gross  impropriety  of  the  initial  means  em 
ployed  in  effecting  it.  Moreover,  for  "the  old  hero,"  who  had 
* '  driven  the  Britishers  out  of  New  Orleans, ' '  to  truckle  to  Great 
Britain,  was  as  incongruous  as  it  had  been  for  Adams  to  permit 
a  proposal  for  a  fugitive  slave  treaty. 

An  important  transaction  with  France  also  signalized  Jack 
son's  administration.  No  settlement  had  yet  been  made  of  the 
American  claims  for  indemnity  for  losses  sustained  by  American 
shipping  during  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  when  William  C. 
Kives  of  Virginia  was  sent  as  minister  to  France  in  1829  he  was 
instructed  to  begin  negotiations  to  that  end.  The  next  year 
occurred  the  revolution  of  July,  by  which  Charles  X  was  de 
posed  and  Louis  Philippe  was  made  king  in  his  place.  This 
gave  Jackson  an  opportunity  to  repeat  the  tactics  of  flattery 
which  he  had  employed  toward  Great  Britain,  and  in  his  next 
message  he  praised  the  "citizen  king"  as  one  " borne  to  the 
throne  by  the  paramount  authority  of  the  public  will."  On 
July  4,  1831,  Rives  signed  a  treaty  providing  for  the  payment 
of  $5,000,000  by  France,  in  six  annual  instalments,  and  also 
for  the  reduction  of  the  tariff  duty  on  French  wines  imported 
into  America.  The  treaty  was  duly  ratified,  ratifications  were 
exchanged  on  February  2,  1832,  and  on  July  13  following  Con 
gress  fulfilled  the  American  obligations  by  making  the  promised 


374  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

reduction  of  the  wine  tariff.  The  French  Chamber,  on  the  other 
hand,  refused  to  fulfil  the  obligations  of  that  country  by  making 
the  necessary  appropriation,  and  in  consequence  when  the 
United  States  made  a  draft  upon  the  French  treasury  for  the 
first  instalment  of  the  indemnity,  payment  was  refused.  The 
king  sent  a  message  to  the  Chamber,  urging  it  to  honor  the 
treaty  by  making  the  appropriation,  but  the  Chamber  ignored 
it.  At  the  moment  there  was  no  American  minister  in  France, 
Rives  having  come  home  and  having  been  elected  a  United 
States  senator.  In  August,  1833,  however,  Edward  Livingston 
of  Louisiana,  who  had  been  secretary  of  state,  was  sent  over. 
The  king  and  his  cabinet  were  sympathetic  and  exerted  all  their 
constitutional  powers  to  prevail  upon  the  Chamber  to  order  the 
appropriation,  but  that  body  remained  stubborn.  After  another 
year  of  dissatisfaction,  Jackson,  in  December,  1834,  reported 
the  case  to  Congress  in  strong  language,  recommending  that 
vigorous  reprisals  be  made  if  the  indemnity  were  not  paid  when 
the  next  instalment  fell  due.  In  the  Senate  this  policy  was 
opposed,  and  it  was  voted,  on  the  initiative  of  Clay,  that  it  was 
inexpedient  to  adopt  any  legislative  measures  on  the  subject  at 
that  time.  It  is  not  improbable  that  this  was  done  partly  be 
cause  of  Clay's  personal  antagonism  toward  Jackson,  but  it 
was  also  based  on  the  perfectly  sound  principle  that  the  re 
sources  of  diplomacy  had  not  yet  been  exhausted  and  that  until 
they  were  Congress  should  not  intervene.  In  the  House  of 
Representatives,  on  the  contrary,  Adams,  who  surely  had  no 
less  cause  for  antagonism  to  the  President,  took  the  lead  in 
supporting  Jackson  with  a  declaration  that  the  fulfilment  of 
the  treaty  ought  to  be  insisted  upon;  though  a  proposal  to  ap 
propriate  $3,000,000  for  war  preparations  was  negatived. 

When  these  things  were  reported  in  France,  excitement  rose 
high.  The  Chamber  again  refused  the  appropriation,  and  the 
French  minister  to  America  was  recalled.  Then  the  Chamber 
voted  to  make  the  appropriation  on  condition  that  Jackson 
would  give  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  his  references  to  France 
in  his  message.  The  reply  to  this  insulting  demand  was  prompt 
and  emphatic.  Livingston  wrote  a  vigorous  note  to  the  Due  de 
Broglie,  the  king's  minister,  vindicating  Jackson,  and  then 
withdrew  from  the  legation.  Jackson  in  his  next  annual  mes- 


EXPANSION  OF  INTERESTS  375 

sage  declared  that  he  would  never  stain  the  honor  of  his  country 
by  apologizing  for  telling  the  truth  and  doing  his  duty.  In 
January,  1836,  he  sent  in  another  special  message,  recommend 
ing  reprisals,  and  urged  the  building  of  coast  forts  and  war 
ships.  Before  any  such  action  was  taken,  however,  a  friendly 
settlement  was  sought.  For  this  Jackson  himself  suggested  the 
way.  He  made  the  amazing  declaration  that  anything  which 
the  President  might  say  to  Congress  was  a  purely  domestic 
matter,  with  which  a  foreign  power  had  no  concern  unless  it  led 
to  action !  Preposterous  as  this  was,  France  seized  upon  it  with 
serious  avidity  as  affording  escape  from  a  situation  of  which 
she  was  both  tired  and  ashamed.  An  offer  of  mediation  by  the 
British  government,  near  the  end  of  January,  1836,  was  eagerly 
accepted,  and  a  month  later  the  British  minister  at  Washing 
ton — who  must  have  struggled  hard  to  maintain  a  grave  and 
decorous  demeanor  amid  such  absurdity — informed  the  secretary 
of  state  that  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  executing  the  treaty 
of  1831  had  been  removed  by  the  "frank  and  honorable  manner" 
in  which  the  President  had  expressed  himself.  A  little  later  the 
overdue  instalments  of  the  indemnity  were  paid,  and  normal 
relations  between  the  two  countries  were  resumed.  This  emi 
nently  satisfactory  result  made,  however,  none  the  less  repre 
hensible  the  utterance  of  Jackson's  which  gave  the  cue  for  it; 
an  utterance  which  only  escaped  being  vicious  by  being  absurd. 
The  incident  was  chiefly  significant  for  its  raising  again  the 
question  to  what  extent  the  money-appropriating  power  of  a 
government  may  be  bound  by  the  treaty-making  power.  That 
question  was  then  raised  concerning  the  French  government, 
but  it  had  before  been  raised  in  this  country  in  connection  with 
Jay's  treaty  in  1796,  and  has  several  times  since  been  raised 
here.  If  the  President  makes  and  the  Senate  ratifies  a  treaty 
calling  for  the  payment  of  a  large  sum  of  money,  to  what  ex 
tent  is  it  incumbent  upon  the  House  of  Representatives  to  vote 
the  necessary  appropriation  ?  In  1835  our  Government  was  con 
tending  that  it  was  compulsory  for  such  an  appropriation  to  be 
voted,  and  that  whatever  treaty  the  French  treaty-making  power 
might  conclude,  the  French  Chamber  must  fulfil  with  the  neces 
sary  legislation.  Consistently,  our  own  House  of  Representa 
tives  in  that  same  episode  promptly  made  the  changes  in  the 


376  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tariff  which  the  President  and  Senate  had  stipulated  in  the 
treaty.  We  thus  established,  both  by  example  and  by  precept 
to  another  nation,  a  principle  which  we  should  certainly  ever 
regard  as  binding  upon  ourselves.  Indeed,  there  ought  to  be 
no  question  concerning  the  matter.  The  same  fundamental  prin 
ciple  which  requires  a  nation,  however  divided  into  parties  and 
factions  at  home,  to  present  a  united  front  to  foreign  powers, 
surely  prescribes  similar  harmony  among  the  various  depart 
ments  of  the  Government  in  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs. 

American  claims  were  also  pressed  by  Jackson's  administra 
tion  against  other  European  countries,  on  grounds  similar  to 
those  against  France.  A  treaty  was  made  in  1830  with  Den 
mark,  providing  for  the  payment  of  claims  amounting  to 
$650,000,  and  in  1832  a  similar  treaty  was  made  with  the  Two 
Sicilies,  for  a  smaller  sum.  A  settlement  with  Spain  for  such 
claims  was  made  in  1834.  Diplomatic  relations  with  Portugal, 
which  had  been  suspended  after  the  revolution  of  June,  1828, 
were  renewed  in  1829,  and  claim  was  made  for  indemnity  for 
the  destruction  of  the  American  privateer  General  Armstrong 
by  British  vessels  in  Portuguese  waters  at  Fayal  in  1814.  The 
claim  was  that  Portugal,  -as  a  neutral  power,  should  have 
afforded  protection  to  the  American  vessel.  The  Portuguese 
reply  was  that  the  American  captain  did  not  ask  protection, 
and  that  in  fact  he  was  the  aggressor.  The  case  dragged  on 
until  1851,  when  it  was  submitted  to  the  arbitration  of  Louis 
Napoleon,  prince-president  of  the  French  Republic,  who  decided 
it  against  the  United  States  on  the  ground  that  if  the  American 
was  not  the  aggressor  he  at  least  engaged  in  armed  conflict  in 
Portuguese  waters  without  demanding  protection. 

The  rapid  extension  of  American  interests  was  further  de 
noted  in  the  making  of  numerous  commercial  and  other  treaties ; 
with  Austria-Hungary  in  1827,  with  Turkey  in  1830,  with 
Mexico  in  1831,  with  Russia  and  Chile  in  1832,  with  Siam  and 
with  Muscat  in  1833,  with  Morocco,  with  Venezuela,  with  Peru, 
and  with  Bolivia  in  1836.  Treaties  with  Prussia  and  with 
Brazil  were  ratified  in  1829.  Reciprocal  arrangements  con 
cerning  tonnage  dues  on  vessels  were  made  with  Austria- 
Hungary  in  1829,  with  Oldenburg  in  1830,  with  Spain  in  1832, 
with  Mecklenberg-Schwerin  in  1835,  and  with  Tuscany  in  1836. 


XIV 

AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION 

THE  boundaries  of  the  Louisiana  Territory,  as  already  re 
called,  were  never  defined  in  any  of  the  various  treaties 
of  cession  to  which  that  domain  was  subjected;  not  even  in  the 
final  treaty  by  virtue  of  which  in  1803  permanent  possession 
of  it  was  acquired  by  the  United  States.  The  most  serious 
doubt  concerned  the  southwestern  boundary,  the  question  being 
whether  the  line  was  to  be  drawn  at  the  Sabine  River  or  at  the 
Rio  Bravo,  later  known  as  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte  and  now 
simply  as  the  Rio  Grande.  In  brief,  it  was  whether  Texas  was 
or  was  not  included  in  Louisiana.  If  it  was,  it  became  in  1803 
the  property  of  the  United  States ;  if  not,  it  remained  the  prop 
erty  of  Spain.  This  question  might  have  been  answered  at 
the  outset  if  France  had  taken  actual  and  full  possession  of 
Louisiana  after  the  purchase  of  it  under  the  treaty  of  San 
Ildefonso,  for  she  either  would  or  would  not  have  taken  posses 
sion  of  Texas,  and  her  course  in  that  respect  would  have  de 
termined  ours  when  we  in  turn  purchased  Louisiana  of  her. 
But  France  did  not  take  actual  possession,  and  the  whole  matter 
was  therefore  left  in  doubt. 

In  the  negotiations  over  Florida,  in  1817-19,  John  Quincy 
Adams  stoutly  maintained  our  right  and  title  to  Texas,  with  the 
Rio  Grande  as  its  southwestern  boundary,  and  wished  to  insist 
upon  recognition  of  that  title  in  the  Florida  treaty.  There  is 
little  doubt  that  if  he  had  been  permitted  to  have  his  way  he 
would  have  compelled  Spain  to  yield  on  that  point  and  all  sub 
sequent  controversy  and  trouble  would  have  been  avoided.  Nor 
is  there  much  doubt  that  his  contention  was  historically  correct 
and  just.  But  he  was  not  permitted  to  have  his  way,  the  in 
terests  of  the  country  in  this  foreign  affair  being  sacrificed  to 
the  sordid  purposes  of  domestic  faction  and  of  personal  jealousy 
and  spite.  Adams  was  recognized  as  the  foremost  candidate 

377 


378  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

for  the  next  term  in  the  Presidency,  but  in  that  candidacy  he 
had  several  rivals,  while  his  peculiarly  aggressive  and  autocratic 
disposition  had  made  for  him  a  number  of  enemies.  The  leader 
of  the  cabal  against  him  was  William  H.  Crawford,  the  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  who  was  ambitious  to  secure  the  Presidential 
nomination,  and  who  succeeded  in  winning  a  majority  of  the 
cabinet  to  his  side.  His  ostensible  ground  for  opposing  Adams's 
policy  was  that  the  acquisition  of  Florida  was  so  essential  to 
the  welfare  of  the  Southeastern  States  that  it  must  not  be  im 
periled  or  delayed  by  making  a  debatable  demand  for  Texas; 
but  his  real  motive  was  doubtless  chiefly  to  thwart  Adams  and 
to  deny  him  the  great  popular  prestige  which  the  winning  of 
Texas  would  have  assured  him.  There  was,  in  fact,  little  reason 
to  fear  that  the  demand  for  Texas  would  delay  the  acquisition 
of  Florida,  while  the  notion  that  it  could  defeat  it  was  palpably 
absurd,  seeing  that  we  had  already  practically  taken  possession 
of  Florida  and  were  fully  resolved  to  annex  it  by  conquest  if 
we  could  not  by  purchase.  Outside  of  the  cabinet,  Clay,  who 
often  strongly  disagreed  with  Adams,  on  this  matter  supported 
him  vigorously,  holding  that  Texas  rightfully  belonged  to  the 
United  States  as  a  part  of  Louisiana,  and  also  that  the  possession 
of  it  was  of  paramount  importance  to  the  States  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley.  Indeed,  he  declared  that  to  the  whole  United 
States  the  possession  of  Texas  was  far  more  important  than 
the  acquisition  of  Florida.  Appeal  was  made  by  Adams  to 
General  Jackson,  as  a  man  deeply  interested  in  both  Louisiana 
and  Florida,  and  Adams  understood  him  to  advise  the  Presi 
dent  not  to  demand  the  recognition  of  our  title  to  Texas.  At 
any  rate,  Adams  so  recorded  Jackson  in  the  diary  which  he  kept 
with  much  detail  and  with  general  accuracy,  and  in  after  years 
he  charged  Jackson  with  having  taken  that  course.  This  Jack 
son  vigorously  denied.  It  seems  probable  that  Adams  was  mis 
taken,  and  that  Jackson  simply  urged  the  immediate  acquisition 
of  Florida,  without  regard  to  anything  else.  That  Jackson 
actually  opposed  the  inclusion  of  Texas  is  not  susceptible  of 
confirmation. 

The  attitude  of  Monroe  himself  was  most  interesting  of  all, 
for  while  he  has  not  been  credited  with  as  high  a  degree  of 
statesmanship  as  some  of  his  contemporaries  he  seems  to  have 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  379 

surpassed  them  all  in  his  prescient  grasp  of  this  subject  and 
his  appreciation  of  what  the  possession  of  Texas  would  ulti 
mately  involve.  He  was  the  one  man  who  recognized  in  ad 
vance  the  relationship  of  Texas  to  the  slavery  question.  Now, 
he  was  himself  a  slaveholder  and  a  nominal  supporter  of  the 
slave  system.  But  he  was  not  so  ardent  or  enthusiastic  a  sup 
porter  of  it  as  to  put  it  above  the  other  interests  of  the  nation. 
Indeed,  he  probably  at  heart  deprecated  any  material  extension 
of  slave  territory  or  slave  power,  and  he  saw  that  the  acquisition 
of  Texas  would  mean  such  extension,  and  would  mean  also  a 
stimulus  to  the  surreptitious  slave  trade.  Just  then  the  sec 
tional  controversy  between  the  Free  States  and  the  Slave  States 
was  becoming  acute,  over  the  Missouri  question,  and  Monroe 
regarded  it  with  grave  apprehension  and  dreaded  the  further 
complication  of  it  and  the  exacerbation  of  passions  which  the 
acquisition  of  Texas  would  cause.  He  had  studied  the  ques 
tion  of  the  Louisiana  boundary  with  great  care,  and  was  con 
vinced  that  our  title  to  Texas  was  good.  He  regarded  our  ulti 
mate  annexation  of  that  territory  as  certain,  and  he  was  fre 
quently  outspoken  in  declaring  that  we  should  not  permit  it  to 
pass  into  the  hands  of  any  other  European  power  than  Spain. 
But  because  of  the  ominous  aspects  of  the  rising  conflict  over 
slavery  as  a  sectional  and  territorial  question,  he  regarded  it  as 
inexpedient  at  that  time  to  insist  upon  our  title  to  Texas. 

The  issue  as  between  us  and  Spain  was  thus  passed  by,  to  be 
raised  between  us  and  Mexico  when  the  latter  became  inde 
pendent  and  succeeded  Spain  in  the  actual  occupancy  of  Texas. 
Upon  our  recognition  of  Mexico  the  President,  Adams,  wished 
to  send  Jackson  as  minister  to  that  country,  but  Jackson  de 
clined  the  appointment  for  fear  that  it  would  injure  his  chances 
of  securing  the  Presidency  at  the  next  election.  Joel  E.  Poinsett 
of  South  Carolina  was  therefore  appointed,  on  March  8,  1825, 
and  Clay,  as  secretary  of  state,  immediately  instructed  him  to 
suggest  to  the  Mexican  government  that  if  it  would  modify 
the  boundary  so  as  to  give  us  some  of  the  territory  west  of  the 
Sabine  and  all  the  valleys  of  the  Red  and  Arkansas  rivers  and 
their  tributaries — the  eastern  and  northern  parts  of  Texas — 
the  United  States  would,  so  far  as  it  could,  restrain  its  Indian 
tribes  from  committing  depredations  in  Mexico.  Poinsett  did 


380  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

not  think  it  discreet  to  submit  this  proposal  to  the  Mexican 
government,  knowing  that  it  would  be  regarded  as  offensive. 
He  did  negotiate  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce,  similar  to 
that  which  had  just  been  made  with  Colombia,  but  the  Senate 
would  not  ratify  it  excepting  on  conditions  unacceptable  to 
Mexico,  and  it  therefore  failed.  In  1827,  Coahuila  and  Texas 
were  united  as  a  single  State  of  the  United  States  of  Mexico, 
with  a  state  constitution  abolishing  and  prohibiting  human 
slavery. 

In  January,  1828,  a  treaty  was  made  with  Mexico  in  which  the 
Sabine  River  was  recognized  as  the  boundary  between  the  two 
countries,  thus  conceding  the  whole  of  Texas  to  Mexico.  It  was 
not  acted  upon  promptly  by  the  Senate,  however,  and  in  the 
meantime  efforts  at  annexation  were  renewed.  When  Jackson 
came  to  the  Presidency  in  1829  he  instructed  Poinsett  to  renew 
negotiations  for  purchase,  offering  five  million  dollars  for  all 
of  Texas  as  far  as  a  line  midway  between  the  Nueces  River  and 
the  Rio  Grande.  The  offer  was  declined,  and  Mexico  made  it 
quite  clear  that  she  did  not  desire  to  part  with  any  portion  of 
Texas  on  any  terms.  About  this  time  Samuel  Houston,  an 
officer  in  Jackson 's  army  in  the  War  of  1812  and  afterward  gov 
ernor  of  Tennessee,  proposed  a  scheme  of  colonizing  Texas  with 
Americans,  who,  when  sufficiently  numerous,  should  organize 
a  revolution,  secede  from  Mexico,  and  annex  Texas  to  the  United 
States.  To  this  scheme,  which  was  little  else  than  piracy,  Jack 
son  seems  to  have  assented.  Previous  to  this  Austin  and  others 
had  established  considerable  colonies  of  Americans  in  Texas, 
not  only  with  the  assent  but  on  the  cordial  invitation  and  with 
the  encouragement  of  Mexico;  that  Government  assuming  that 
these  settlers  would  become  Mexican  citizens.  .  When  Houston 's 
scheme  was  broached,  however,  the  Mexican  government,  sus 
pecting  what  the  design  was,  reversed  its  policy  and  forbade 
any  further  settlement  of  Americans  in  Texas.  But  this  pro 
hibition  was  openly  disregarded.  Land  companies  were  or 
ganized  in  the  United  States  for  the  colonization  of  Texas,  and 
settlers  flocked  in  in  great  numbers.  No  forcible  resistance  was 
made  by  Mexico,  and  in  his  message  of  December,  1830,  Jackson 
reported  to  Congress  that  "the  unfortunate  and  unfounded  sus 
picions  "  of  Mexico  concerning  the  purposes  of  American  set- 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  381 

tiers  had  been  tl entirely  removed,"  and  that  ' 'friendship  and 
mutual  confidence"  had  been  restored  between  the  two  coun 
tries.  The  delayed  treaty  recognizing  the  Sabine  boundary  was 
at  last  ratified  in  April,  1832,  together  with  a  treaty  of  commerce 
which  had  been  negotiated  a  year  before.  In  1835,  Poinsett 
was  succeeded  by  Colonel  Anthony  Butler,  who  under  Jackson's 
instructions  made  several  efforts  at  purchase.  One  proposition 
was  to  purchase  all  of  Texas  as  far  as  the  Rio  Grande,  thence 
north  and  west  on  that  river  to  the  thirty-seventh  parallel  of 
latitude,  and  thence  on  that  line  to  the  Pacific.  This  would 
have  given  us  all  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  Arizona,  and  the 
southern  half  of  California.  Another  was  to  purchase  the  Bay 
of  San  Francisco,  California,  and  some  adjacent  territory.  Both 
proposals  were  declined. 

Meantime,  taking  advantage  of  the  disturbed  state  of  affairs 
in  Mexico,  where  frequent  revolutions  rendered  the  Government 
impotent  for  self-defense,  Houston  and  his  followers  continued 
their  work  of  colonization,  and  on  March  2,  1836,  they  felt  them 
selves  sufficiently  strong  to  call  a  state  convention,  adopt  an  or 
dinance  of  secession,  and  proclaim  Texas  to  be  an  independent 
republic.  There  was  no  attempt  to  conceal  the  fact  that  this 
action  was  intended  as  a  mere  stepping  stone  to  annexation  to 
the  United  States,  and  the  further  intention  thus  to  provide 
for  an  increase  of  slave  territory  was  proclaimed  in  the  con 
stitution  of  Texas,  which  reestablished  slavery  in  a  particularly 
extreme  form,  and  forbade  the  presence  in  that  republic  of  any 
Negroes  who  were  not  slaves.  In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks,  after 
three  small  battles,  Mexican  authority  was  practically  expelled 
and  Texas  became  in  fact  independent.  As  nearly  all  the  Texan 
leaders,  in  both  politics  and  fighting,  were  colonists  or  filibusters 
from  the  United  States,  the  sympathy  of  this  country  was  largely 
given  to  them.  Within  a  few  weeks  after  the  declaration  of 
Texan  independence,  application  was  made  by  that  republic 
for  annexation  to  the  United  States,  numerous  petitions  to  that 
end  were  presented  to  Congress,  and  a  strong  popular  demand 
for  such  action  arose,  particularly  in  the  West  and  South. 
Jackson  favored  the  scheme,  and  John  C.  Calhoun,  the  leader 
of  the  administration  party  in  the  Senate,  was  most  urgent  for 
the  immediate  recognition  of  Texan  independence  and  the  in- 


382  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

corporation  of  that  country  into  the  Union  as  a  State.  Webster, 
the  opposition  leader  in  the  Senate,  was  also  favorably  disposed 
toward  recognition  and  annexation,  but  prudently  counseled 
delay  until  the  de  facto  independence  of  Texas  and  the  stability 
and  efficiency  of  her  government  were  assured.  Accordingly,  on 
June  18,  1836,  three  and  a  half  months  after  the  declaration  of 
Texan  independence,  the  Senate  unanimously  voted  that  the  in 
dependence  of  Texas  should  be  recognized  whenever  satisfactory 
information  should  be  received  that  it  had  in  successful  operation 
a  civil  government  capable  of  performing  the  duties  and  fulfilling 
the  obligations  of  an  independent  power.  The  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  adopted  a  like  resolution  by  an  overwhelming  vote, 
the  opposition  numbering  only  twenty-one  votes  from  the  Free 
States  and  one  from  a  slave  State.  It  is  quite  probable  that 
Congress  would  have  gone  to  the  extent  of  immediately  recog 
nizing  the  independence  of  Texas  and  admitting  her  to  the 
Union,  had  not  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  was  now  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  made  a  powerful  speech  against 
such  action,  basing  his  opposition  not  upon  unwillingness  to 
acquire  new  territory  but  upon  the  certainty  that  the  course 
proposed  would  immediately  involve  us  in  a  war  with  Mexico. 
This  speech  produced  a  marked  impression,  especially  in  the 
North,  and  provoked  Jackson  to  denounce  Adams  as  his  "arch 
enemy"  and  to  charge  him  with  having  defeated  the  annexation 
of  Texas.  It  was  even  said,  by  Jackson 's  partizans,  that  Adams 
had  deliberately  sacrificed  and  renounced  Texas  in  the  Florida 
treaty,  the  fact  being,  of  course,  just  the  reverse — that  Adams 
had  demanded  the  inclusion  of  Texas  as  a  part  of  the  Louisiana 
purchase,  but  was  overruled  by  his  colleagues  in  the  cabinet. 
Even  at  this  time  Adams  was  doubtless  inclined  toward  the  an 
nexation  of  Texas,  but  he  did  not  want  to  do  in  a  dishonorable 
way  and  at  the  cost  of  war  what  might  have  been  done  honor 
ably  and  without  a  single  blow.  If  there  was  one  man  in 
America  whose  record  concerning  Texas  was  above  reproach,  it 
was  Adams. 

A  desultory  war  ensued  between  Texas  and  Mexico,  in  which 
the  United  States  government,  under  Jackson's  directions,  prac 
tically  ignored  all  the  obligations  of  neutrality.  Volunteers  for 
the  Texan  army,  were  recruited  in  this  country,  and  vessels 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  383 

of  war  were  fitted  out,  as  openly  as  though  they  were  to  serve 
in  a  war  waged  by  the  United  States  itself.  Jackson  even  went 
so  far  as  to  send  an  American  army,  under  General  Gaines,  into 
Texas,  to  cooperate  with  the  Texan  army;  the  insincere  pre 
text  being  that  it  was  to  prevent  an  uprising  of  the  Indians! 
At  this  the  Mexican  minister  withdrew  from  Washington  and 
diplomatic  relations  between  the  two  countries  were  severed. 
Jackson  then  recalled  the  troops,  and  in  his  annual  message 
in  the  following  December,  1836,  attempted  a  specious  defense 
of  his  course,  in  terms  which  were  little  less  than  insulting  to 
Mexico  and  its  minister.  A  few  days  later  the  government  of 
Texas  declared  the  Rio  Grande  to  be  the  southwestern  boundary 
of  that  republic.  A  special  message  from  Jackson  in  the  same 
month  reported  that  he  had  taken  no  steps  toward  acknowledg 
ing  the  independence  of  Texas,  and  remitted  that  matter — 
properly  an  executive  function — to  Congress,  with  the  recom 
mendation  that  in  acting  upon  it  that  body  should  proceed 
with  more  than  ordinary  caution.  The  response  was  for  the 
Senate,  ten  weeks  later,  to  vote  by  the  narrow  margin  of  four 
votes — twenty-three  to  nineteen — in  favor  of  immediate  recogni 
tion.  The  House  by  a  vote  of  ninety-eight  to  eighty-six  laid 
that  resolution  upon  the  table,  but  at  the  same  time  voted 
overwhelmingly  an  appropriation  for  the  expenses  of  a  diplo 
matic  agent  to  Texas  whenever  the  President  should  find 
Texas  to  be  in  fact  an  independent  power  worthy  of  such  recog 
nition. 

Jackson  disliked,  however,  to  assume  the  responsibility  for 
such  action,  and  continued  his  efforts  to  secure  Texas  by  using 
Congress  as  a  cat's-paw.  In  a  message  in  February,  1837,  he 
dwelt  upon  the  monstrous  injuries  and  insults  which,  he  de 
clared,  Mexico  had  heaped  upon  this  country,  its  citizens,  its 
officers,  its  government,  and  its  flag ;  and  he  made  a  contemptuous 
reference  to  the  late  Mexican  minister.  There  was,  he  said, 
ample  cause  for  declaring  war,  and  he  recommended  that  a 
warship  be  sent  to  the  Mexican  coast  with  a  peremptory  de 
mand  for  redress,  and  that  if  Mexico  did  not  give  a  satisfactory 
response  our  navy  should  begin  violent  reprisals  upon  her. 
Congress  was  not  so  bellicose,  and  contented  itself  with  adopting 
resolutions  favoring  another  demand  for  redress  in  accordance 


384  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

with  the  terms  of  the  treaty  of  1831.  The  claims,  which  were 
largely  valid,  had  not  been  preferred  until  1836,  so  that  Jack 
son's  reference  to  them  as  long  standing  was  unwarranted.  In 
1838  a  treaty  was  made  for  their  settlement,  which  Mexico  re 
fused  to  ratify,  and  another  was  made  and  ratified  in  1839. 
Congress  in  1840  and  1841  enacted  laws  to  carry  this  treaty 
into  effect,  and  American  and  Mexican  commissioners  met  to 
effect  a  settlement.  But  a  dispute  at  once  arose  on  a  funda 
mental  matter,  the  Mexicans  insisting  that  the  commissions  were 
diplomatic  bodies,  and  the  Americans  maintaining  that  the  two 
jointly  constituted  a  judicial  body.  The  result  was  much  delay 
and  consequent  failure  to  act  on  many  claims.  Mexico  did  not 
honor  such  findings  as  were  made,  and  in  1843  a  new  treaty  was 
made,  to  complete  the  work,  but  before  anything  could  be  done 
under  it  the  war  of  1846  occurred  between  the  United  States  and 
Mexico. 

The  independence  of  Texas  was  finally  recognized  in  the  clos 
ing  days  of  Jackson's  administration,  and  the  further  prosecu 
tion  of  the  problem  was  remitted  to  his  successor,  Van  Buren. 
Another  request  from  Texas  for  annexation  and  admission  to 
the  Union  was  promptly  made,  but  Van  Buren  regarded  it  with 
disfavor.  He  had  no  love  for  slavery,  and  he  did  not  care  to  do 
an  act  of  doubtful  morality,  the  chief  purpose  of  which  was 
to  extend  slave  territory  and  thus  to  increase  the  power  of  the 
pro-slavery  party.  The  whole  Texas  question  was  therefore 
practically  laid  upon  the  shelf  during  his  four  years'  adminis 
tration.  Nor  were  those  years  marked  with  any  important 
achievements  in  the  domain  of  foreign  relationships.  Perhaps 
the  chief  incident  was  an  unpleasant  but  happily  not  disastrous 
one  which  occurred  in  1837,  during  the  Canadian  rebellion  of 
that  time.  There  were  in  this  country,  and  particularly  in  New 
York  State,  many  sympathizers  with  the  insurgents,  and  much 
aid  was  given  to  them  in  violation  of  the  neutrality  laws. 
Finally  an  insurgent  expedition  was  organized  in  New  York, 
which  seized  Navy  Island,  a  Canadian  island  in  the  Niagara 
River.  The  Canadian  government  retaliated  by  sending  an  ex 
pedition  to  the  American  shore,  and  capturing  and  destroying 
a  vessel — the  Caroline — belonging  to  the  insurgents.  President 
Van  Buren  promptly  issued  a  proclamation  forbidding  further 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  385 

violations  of  the  neutrality  laws  and  calling  out  the  New  York 
militia  to  prevent  them.  This  action  was  of  course  correct  and 
commendable,  but  it  brought  upon  Van  Buren  much  criticism 
from  those  who  let  their  prejudices  and  passions  overcome  their 
regard  for  law  and  international  obligations. 

The  incident  of  the  Caroline  had  one  important  effect  upon 
our  judicial  system.  In  the  seizure  and  destruction  of  that  ves 
sel  an  American  was  killed.  Three  years  later,  in  1840,  a  British 
subject,  named  McLeod,  visited  New  York  and  was  arrested  by 
the  authorities  on  a  charge  of  participating  in  the  expedition 
which  destroyed  the  Caroline,  and  was  brought  to  trial  for  mur 
der.  The  British  government  protested  against  this,  on  the 
ground  that  McLeod,  if  he  had  been  in  the  expedition,  had  sim 
ply  obeyed  its  orders  and  that  it  and  not  he  was  to  be  held  ac 
countable.  Webster,  then  secretary  of  state,  held  that  McLeod 
was  subject  to  trial,  but  in  a  federal  and  not  in  a  state  court. 
The  New  York  court,  backed  by  the  governor  of  the  State,  per 
sisted  in  trying  him,  however,  and  the  Federal  Government  had 
to  be  content  with  sending  the  attorney-general  to  watch  the 
case  and  to  see  that  justice  was  done.  The  case  was  ended  by 
McLeod 's  proving  an  alibi,  and  thus  securing  acquittal.  But 
Webster  drafted  an  act,  which  was  passed  by  Congress  and  made 
law,  conferring  jurisdiction  in  all  such  cases  upon  the  federal 
courts. 

A  new  era  in  our  Mexican-Texan  relations  began  in  1841, 
when  Harrison  became  president,  a  month  later  to  be  succeeded 
by  Tyler,  and  Webster  was  secretary  of  state.  In  December  of 
that  year  Houston,  who  for  a  second  time  had  become  president 
of  Texas,  sent  James  Riley  to  Washington  as  charge  d'affaires, 
with  instructions  to  renew  efforts  for  annexation.  There  was 
apparently  little  hope  in  Texas  that  he  would  be  successful,  and 
there  was  little  surprise  though  doubtless  much  regret  when, 
in  March,  1842,  he  wrote  to  the  Texas  secretary  of  state  that 
nothing  could  be  done  in  that  direction.  At  his  own  request  he 
was  then  recalled  and  Isaac  Van  Zandt  was  sent  in  his  place, 
with  instructions  to  watch  for  a  favorable  opportunity  to  renew 
the  overtures.  The  strange  spectacle  was  presented  of  an  ex 
tensive,  rich,  and  populous  country  humbly  begging  to  be  an 
nexed  to  this  Union,  and  being  repeatedly  refused.  Meantime 

VOL.  1—25 


386  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Mexico  had  not  recognized  the  independence  of  Texas,  nor  made 
peace  with  that  State,  and  now  gave  indication  of  an  active  and 
aggressive  renewal  of  military  operations  for  its  reconquest. 
Webster  wrote  to  Thompson,  our  minister  to  Mexico,  that  the 
United  States  saw  that  prospect  with  pain,  and  could  not  be 
indifferent  to  it,  though  it  claimed  no  right  to  intervene.  He 
pointed  out  that  for  nearly  seven  years  Texas  had  in  fact  main 
tained  its  independence,  it  had  made  treaties  with  other  powers, 
it  was  making  much  progress  in  the  arts  of  peace,  and  in  lan 
guage,  laws,  and  habits  of  the  people  it  was  so  radically  dif 
ferent  from  Mexico  that  reunion  of  the  two  would  be  incon 
gruous.  He  therefore  directed  Thompson  to  watch  for  an  op 
portunity  for  tendering  the  good  offices  of  this  country  for  the 
composition  of  the  controversy  and  the  establishment  of  peace. 
He  also  referred  in  a  significant  manner  to  the  danger  that,  in  a 
renewal  of  war  between  Mexico  and  Texas,  many  Americans 
would  flock  to  the  support  of  the  latter,  and  enforcement  of  the 
neutrality  laws  would  be  difficult  if  not  impossible. 

Mexican  animosity  toward  the  United  States  was  further  pro 
voked  in  the  fall  of  1842  by  an  unfortunate  incident  based  upon 
misunderstanding.  Commodore  Jones  of  the  United  States 
navy,  while  cruising  off  the  coast  of  Peru,  heard  rumors  that 
Great  Britain  had  purchased  California  of  Mexico,  and  was  send 
ing  a  naval  expedition  thither  to  take  possession,  and  that  the 
United  States  had  declared  war  against  Mexico  on  that  and 
other  accounts.  Thinking  to  forestall  British  occupation  and 
to  gain  great  advantage  for  the  United  States,  he  hastened  to 
the  California  coast  without  orders  and  on  his  own  initiative 
seized  the  city  of  Monterey  and  proclaimed  American  possession 
of  the  country.  That  was  on  October  20.  The  very  next  day 
he  was  convinced  that  the  reports  on  which  he  had  so  precipi 
tately  acted  were  false,  and  he  therefore  surrendered  the  place 
to  the  Mexican  authorities  and  took  his  departure  with  such 
grace  as  was  possible.  The  President  of  course  disavowed  the 
act  and  made  apologies  for  it  to  the  Mexican  minister,  but  de 
clined  the  latter 's  demand  for  the  punishment  of  Jones,  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  acted  in  good  faith  though  under  misappre 
hension,  and  had  "intended  no  indignity  to  the  government 
of  Mexico,  nor  anything  unlawful  toward  her  citizens."  But 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  387 

the  incident  was  remembered  for  years  as  a  grievance  against  the 
United  States. 

Nothing  more  was  effected  by  the  United  States  diplomatically 
at  this  time,  and  the  Mexican  government  regarded  this  coun 
try  with  increasing  suspicion.  It  was  therefore  much  more 
inclined  to  listen  to  the  representations  of  other  powers,  and 
in  the  summer  of  1843  it  yielded  to  the  persuasions  of  the  Brit 
ish  and  French  ministers  so  far  as  to  agree  to  an  armistice  for 
the  consideration  of  terms  of  peace  between  it  and  Texas.  Those 
countries  had  long  before  recognized  the  independence  of 
Texas,  and  had  been  urging  Mexico  to  do  the  same.  The  United 
States,  therefore,  was  confronted  with  the  unwelcome  spectacle 
of  European  mediation  between  two  neighboring  American 
States  in  a  case  in  which  its  own  good  offices  had  been  rejected. 
And  this  within  twenty  years  after  the  promulgation  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine!  Nor  was  that  the  only  humiliation  of  this 
country.  As  soon  as  the  armistice  was  established  through  Eu 
ropean  mediation,  Texas,  exulting  in  the  support  of  Great 
Britain  and  France,  reversed  its  attitude  toward  the  United 
States  and  in  a  curt  and  cavalier  fashion  announced  that  it  had 
no  more  any  wish  for  annexation  and  would  not  thereafter  con 
sider  that  question  open  for  discussion.  Texas,  in  brief,  was 
quite  content  to  remain  an  independent  State,  at  peace  with 
Mexico,  and  under  the  gwasi-protection  of  Great  Britain  and 
France. 

There  may  be  some  question  as  to  whether  Texas  really  meant 
this,  or  was  merely  playing  a  shrewd  diplomatic  game  and  seek 
ing  to  gain  through  indifference  that  which  it  had  not  been 
able  to  gain  through  humble  suing.  In  either  case,  the  effect 
of  the  change  of  tone  was  instantaneous  and  effective.  The 
United  States  was  startled  and  alarmed.  It  awakened  to  a 
realization  of  the  grave  risks  which  it  had  incurred  in  refusing 
to  annex  Texas  when  it  had  a  chance  to  do  so.  The  anxiety 
which  was  thus  aroused  was  much  heightened  by  rumors  that 
under  British  influence  Texas  was  on  the  point  of  amending  its 
constitution  so  as  to  abolish  slavery.  Of  course  the  prospect 
of  having  a  free  State  made  of  the  territory  which  had  been 
designed  for  the  extension  of  slavery  was  regarded  with  little 
less  than  consternation  by  the  pro-slavery  leaders  of  the  South- 


388  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ern  States.  Whether  this  danger  was  real  or  imaginary  is  not 
clear.  There  were  those  who  believed  the  rumors  to  be  mere 
concoctions  of  political  schemers  in  this  country,  to  frighten 
our  government  into  action  for  the  acquisition  of  Texas  at  any 
cost.  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  S.  P.  Andrews,  a  Massa 
chusetts  lawyer  and  intense  opponent  of  slavery,  who  had  set 
tled  at  Houston,  Texas,  did  get  into  negotiations  with  British 
diplomats  with  a  view  to  some  such  end.  But  when  the  people 
of  Houston  learned  what  he  had  been  doing  they  forcibly  drove 
him  out  of  that  place  and  forbade  him  ever  to  return.  His 
scheme,  whether  practical  or  fantastic,  and  the  rumors  based 
thereon,  had,  however,  a  marked  effect  upon  the  United  States 
government.  A.  P.  Upshur  was  secretary  of  state,  and  doubt 
less  reflecting  the  mind  of  the  President,  Tyler,  he  fully  cred 
ited  all  the  rumors  and  believed  that  Great  Britain  was  elabo 
rating  an  extensive  scheme  for  destroying  slavery  in  the  United 
States  in  order  to  protect  the  industries  of  her  West  India 
colonies  from  its  competition;  and  also  for  securing  advantages 
in  the  commerce  of  Texas  and  political  influence  in  the  councils 
of  that  State.  He  indeed  ascertained  that  somebody  connected 
with  the  British  government  had  asked  the  Texan  minister  to 
Great  Britain  and  France  if  Texas  would  abolish  slavery  in 
return  for  some  substantial  recompense,  and  also  whether  Texas 
could  not  be  divided  into  two  States,  that  east  of  the  Col 
orado  River  to  be  slaveholding  and  that  west  of  it  to  be  free. 
The  maker  of  these  inquiries  declared  that  he  was  acting  with 
the  knowledge  and  approval  of  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  the  Brit 
ish  foreign  minister,  who  expected  that  if  Texas  were  thus  di 
vided  the  free  State  would  outgrow  the  slave  State  and  soon 
compel  the  latter  also  to  become  free.  Indeed,  some  remarks  of 
Aberdeen's  in  Parliament  seemed  to  indicate  that  it  was  the 
British  policy  to  secure  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas  and  then 
in  the  United  States.  Our  government  thereupon,  through  its 
minister  at  London,  Mr.  Everett,  made  inquiry  and  complaint 
concerning  this  utterance;  in  reply  to  which  Aberdeen  de 
clared  explicitly  that  his  government  had  no  occult  design, 
either  with  reference  to  any  peculiar  influence  which  it  might 
seek  to  establish  in  Mexico  or  in  Texas,  or  even  with  reference 
to  the  slavery  which  then  existed  in  Texas.  He  admitted  that 


AGGEESSION  AND  EXPANSION  389 

the  British  government  desired  to  see  slavery  everywhere  abol 
ished,  and  that  it  was  ready  to  give  advice  to  that  effect  wher 
ever  it  was  proper  for  it  to  do  so,  but  he  denied  any  intention 
of  making  a  treaty  on  the  subject  with  Texas. 

As  a  result  of  these  things  Tyler  and  Upshur  determined 
to  checkmate  the  supposed  designs  of  Great  Britain  by  secur 
ing  in  some  way  the  annexation  of  Texas.  In  October,  1843, 
therefore,  Upshur  wrote  to  Van  Zandt,  the  Texan  minister,  ask 
ing  for  a  conference  and  negotiations  on  the  subject.  It  was 
only  a  few  months  before  that  Van  Zandt  had  declared  that  the 
matter  was  closed  and  was  not  to  be  reopened.  He  now,  there 
fore,  replied  that  he  would  have  to  consult  his  own  government 
on  the  subject,  and  when  he  did  so  the  president,  Houston,  af 
fected  to  be  quite  indifferent  if  not  actually  opposed  to  any 
further  consideration  of  the  matter.  Even  if  Texas  were  will 
ing  to  be  annexed,  he  said,  it  was  doubtful  if  the  treaty  would 
be  ratified  by  the  United  States  Senate.  If  it  were  not  rati 
fied,  Texas  would  lose  the  valuable  friendship  of  Great  Britain 
without  gaining  anything  in  return,  and  would  thus  be  placed 
"in  an  extremely  awkward  situation."  He  also  feared  that 
Mexico  would  attack  and  invade  Texas  as  soon  as  it  was  known 
that  an  annexation  treaty  was  being  made,  and  that  if  the 
treaty  failed,  Texas  would  again  have  to  fight  for  independence. 

There  was  indeed  good  cause,  as  the  event  showed,  for  fear 
ing  rejection  of  the  treaty.  The  moment  it  was  known  that 
such  a  measure  was  contemplated,  vigorous  opposition  arose. 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  twelve  of  his  colleagues  in  Congress 
signed  an  address  to  the  people  of  the  Free  States,  protesting 
against  it  and  declaring  that  the  adoption  of  the  treaty  would 
mean  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  Upshur,  however,  assured 
Houston  that  the  treaty  would  be  ratified  if  it  were  made,  and 
that  United  States  troops  would  be  held  in  readiness  to  pro 
tect  Texas  against  a  Mexican  attack  during  the  negotiations. 
Over  the  latter  point  a  protracted  controversy  arose.  Van 
Zandt 's  first  request  was  for  such  use  of  American  troops  in 
the  interval  between  the  signing  and  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty.  This  request  remained  unanswered  at  the  time  of  Up 
shur 's  death,  on  February  28,  1844.  But  a  demand  by  Houston 
himself,  on  February  14,  that  troops  should  be  used  at  any  time 


390  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

after  negotiations  were  opened,  was  immediately  answered  by 
Murphy,  the  American  charge  d'affaires  in  Texas,  with  a 
promise  that  it  would  be  granted.  John  C.  Calhoun  succeeded 
Upshur,  and  on  April  11,  the  day  before  the  signing  of  the 
treaty,  he  answered  the  note  from  Van  Zandt  which  Upshur 
had  left  unanswered,  saying  that  troops  had  already  been  placed 
in  readiness  for  use,  if  necessary,  after  the  signing  of  the  treaty ; 
and  the  next  day  Murphy  told  the  Texas  government  that  his 
promise  to  Houston  that  troops  would  be  used  before  the  sign 
ing  of  the  treaty  had  been  repudiated  by  his  government  and 
must  therefore  be  annulled.  On  that  very  day,  however,  the 
treaty  was  signed  and  so  the  troops  became  available  for  use. 
The  intention  of  the  United  States  government  was  thus  made 
plain,  that  it  would  not  intervene  for  the  protection  of  Texas 
before  the  treaty  was  signed,  but  would  do  so  after  that  event. 
The  forces  in  question  were  1150  soldiers  at  Fort  Jesup,  in 
Louisiana,  near  the  Texas  border,  and  six  vessels  of  the  navy, 
cruising  in  the  Gulf  and  occasionally  displaying  themselves  off 
the  Mexican  port  of  Vera  Cruz. 

It  should  be  added  that  a  delayed  despatch  from  the  Earl 
of  Aberdeen,  disclaiming  any  ulterior  designs  in  Texas,  Mexico 
or  elsewhere,  reached  our  government  only  two  days  before 
Upshur 's  death  and  was  therefore  left  unanswered  by  him. 
Nearly  two  months  later,  and  some  days  after  the  signing  of  the 
Texas  annexation  treaty,  Calhoun  as  Upshur 's  successor  an 
swered  it  in  characteristic  fashion.  He  expressed  concern  at 
the  avowal  of  Great  Britain's  desire  for  universal  abolition  of 
slavery,  and  argued  that  abolition  in  Texas,  which  Great  Britain 
specially  desired,  would  be  disastrous  to  the  interests  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  Negroes  themselves,  whose  emanci 
pation  would  be  neither  humane  nor  wise.  He,  moreover,  an 
nounced  that  the  treaty  of  annexation  had  been  made  "in  self- 
defense,"  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  Great  Britain  from  se 
curing  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas.  The  British  minis 
ter  at  Washington,  Pakenham,  responded  that  Great  Britain 
had  given  no  cause  for  such  action  and  was  in  no  sense  respon 
sible  for  it.  Calhoun 's  retort  was  a  reassertion  of  his  former 
statements,  and  a  declaration  that  the  United  States  would  shun 
no  responsibility  in  the  matter  which  fairly  belonged  to  it. 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  391 

The  treaty  of  annexation  was  thus  made  and  signed  on  April 
12,  1844.  Its  terms,  which  had  been  kept  a  profound  secret, 
were  found  on  disclosure  to  be  far  less  favorable  to  Texas  than 
that  country  desired.  Texas  was  not  to  be  annexed  as  a  State 
of  the  Union,  but  as  a  territory  subject  to  the  same  congressional 
control  as  the  other  territories;  so  that  Congress  might  abolish 
slavery  in  it  and  require  constitutional  prohibition  of  slavery 
as  a  prerequisite  to  statehood.  It  was  provided  that  Texas 
should  surrender  to  the  United  States  all  its  public  lands,  and 
that  the  United  States  should  assume  the  public  debt  of  Texas 
to  the  amount  of  not  more  than  ten  million  dollars.  Tyler  sent 
the  treaty  to  the  Senate  ten  days  after  the  signing  of  it,  with 
a  message  earnestly  urging  its  ratification.  An  animated  and 
protracted  discussion  ensued,  in  which  domestic  politics  figured 
more  than  foreign  policy.  Clay  had  been  nominated  by  the 
Whigs  for  the  Presidency,  and  was  outspoken  in  his  opposi 
tion  to  the  treaty  and  to  the  whole  annexation  scheme,  though 
not  a  word  was  said  on  the  subject  in  the  platform.  Polk  had 
been  nominated  by  the  Democrats,  on  a  platform  vigorously  de 
manding  annexation.  Moreover,  Ex-President  Jackson  pub 
lished  a  letter  in  which  he  declared  that  any  senator  who  voted 
against  the  treaty  would  be  a  traitor  to  the  best  interests  of 
the  nation.  There  were  in  the  Senate  twenty-nine  Whigs  and 
twenty-three  Democrats,  and  a  two-thirds  vote  was  necessary  for 
ratification.  The  outcome,  on  June  8,  was  the  overwhelming 
rejection  of  the  treaty.  One  Whig,  Henderson  of  Mississippi, 
was  moved  by  slaveholding  interests  to  vote  for  ratification,  but 
the  other  twenty-eight  voted  against  it  and  were  joined  in  so 
doing  by  seven  Democrats,  while  one  Democrat  refrained  from 
voting  and  the  remaining  fifteen  voted  for  ratification.  The 
vote  thus  stood  sixteen  ayes  to  thirty-five  nays,  whereas  to  have 
secured  ratification  the  figures  should  have  been  exactly  re 
versed. 

Two  days  after  this  rejection  by  the  Senate,  Tyler  sent  the 
treaty  to  the  House  of  Representatives  with  all  the  documents 
relating  to  it  and  with  a  message  strongly  pleading  for  annex 
ation  by  any  means  which  might  be  found  practicable.  It  had 
been  argued  by  opponents  of  the  treaty  that  Mexico's  assent 
should  first  have  been  secured,  and  also  that  the  question  of  the 


392  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

boundary  between  Texas  and  Mexico  should  have  been  settled. 
To  this  Tyler,  not  without  force,  replied  that  the  former  course 
would  have  been  offensive  to  Mexico  and  would  have  been  an 
admission  that  our  recognition  of  Texan  independence  was 
" fraudulent,  delusive  or  void";  and  that  the  boundary  ques 
tion  could  not  properly  be  taken  up  by  the  United  States  until 
after  annexation.  Nothing  was  done  by  the  House,  however, 
while  the  Senate  for  a  few  days  longer  discussed  the  matter 
in  various  phases.  A  motion  by  McDuffie  of  South  Carolina 
for  a  joint  resolution  annexing  Texas  on  the  same  terms  as  those 
of  the  treaty  was  laid  on  the  table  by  a  vote  of  twenty-seven 
to  nineteen,  and  a  like  disposition,  by  a  vote  of  twenty-five  to 
twenty,  was  made  of  a  bill  introduced  by  Benton  of  Missouri, 
authorizing  the  President  to  negotiate  with  both  Texas  and  Mex 
ico  for  annexation  of  the  former  and  for  adjustment  of  bound 
aries.  Congress  then  adjourned  without  further  action. 

Before  the  defeat  of  the  treaty  was  known  in  England, 
though  really  after  its  occurrence,  the  British  government  told 
the  minister  from  Texas  that  Great  Britain  and  France  would 
join  the  United  States  and  Texas  in  a  "diplomatic  act"  fixing 
the  boundaries  and  guaranteeing  the  independence  of  Texas,  to 
which  Mexico  would  be  forced,  if  need  be,  to  agree.  This,  of 
course,  was  to  be  in  case  the  annexation  treaty  failed  of  rati 
fication;  as  it  did.  Houston,  the  president  of  Texas,  instructed 
his  secretary  of  state,  Anson  Jones,  to  accept  the  offer,  but  Jones, 
who  in  a  short  time  himself  became  president,  suppressed  the 
order  and  nothing  was  publicly  known  of  it  until  years  after 
ward. 

The  question  of  annexation — or  ' '  re-annexation, "  as  the 
Democrats  affected  to  call  it — was  thus  remitted  to  the  popular 
electoral  campaign  for  discussion.  Clay  adopted  toward  it  a 
somewhat  uncertain  and  equivocal  tone,  which  lost  him  many 
votes.  The  result  of  the  election  was,  however,  chiefly  deter 
mined  by  the  rise  of  a  third  party,  the  so-called  Liberty  party, 
composed  of  aggressive  enemies  of  slavery,  which  drew  from  the 
Whigs  just  enough  to  compass  Clay's  defeat.  Polk  was  elected 
by  a  substantial  majority  of  the  electoral  college  but  by  only 
a  bare  plurality  of  the  popular  vote.  This  victory  greatly 
strengthened  President  Tyler  in  his  insistence  upon  annexa- 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  393 

tion,  and  he  renewed  his  efforts  to  complete  the  work  before  the 
end  of  his  administration.  In  his  message  to  Congress  in  De 
cember,  1844,  he  recommended  the  adoption  of  a  joint  resolu 
tion  annexing  Texas  on  the  terms  of  the  treaty  which  had  been 
agreed  upon  by  the  representatives  of  both  countries.  Mc- 
Duffie  and  Benton  thereupon  reintroduced  their  measures  which 
had  been  tabled,  and  some  others  were  proposed,  and  a  great 
flood  of  petitions  pro  and  contra  poured  in  from  the  public  and 
from  the  legislatures  of  States.  In  the  debate  which  ensued 
two  points  were  salient.  One  was  that  raised  by  John  Quincy 
Adams,  who  had  already  declared  that  to  annex  foreign  terri 
tory  in  such  fashion  would  be  to  dissolve  the  Union.  It  was 
true  that  the  treaty-making  power  of  a  sovereign  government  in 
cluded  the  power  to  acquire  territory;  as  indeed  in  his  own 
negotiations  Florida  had  been  acquired.  But  there  was  no 
power  to  transfer  the  inhabitants  of  one  country  to  the  sov 
ereignty  of  another  without  their  consent.  The  merging  of  one 
sovereignty  into  another  must  therefore  be  done  by  the  people 
themselves.  This  was  an  argument  entitled  to  serious  consid 
eration,  and  it  was  theoretically  sound.  But  practically  it  was 
ruled  out  of  court  by  the  universal  practice  of  nations.  Adams 
himself  did  not  consult  the  people  of  Florida  when  he  annexed 
that  territory. 

The  other  point  was  the  practical  certainty  of  war  with  Mex 
ico  if  we  annexed  Texas.  For  nine  years,  nearly,  Texas  had 
been  independent,  but  Mexico  had  never  acknowledged  the  fact. 
On  the  contrary  she  insisted  that  her  title  to  continued  sover 
eignty  over  Texas  should  be  treated  with  respect  even  by  those 
powers  which  had  recognized  Texan  independence.  The  war 
for  restoration  of  Texas  to  Mexican  authority  had  dwindled  into 
occasional  sporadic  border  raids,  but  it  had  never  yet  been 
formally  abandoned.  The  acquisition  of  Texas  by  the  United 
States  would  of  course  alter  the  military  aspects  of  the  case, 
and  continuance  of  border  raids  would  mean  war.  This  pros 
pect  was  not,  however,  feared,  if  indeed  it  was  altogether  un 
welcome.  Already  there  had  arisen  American  desires  which 
could  scarcely  be  gratified  without  a  war  of  conquest.  Amer 
ican  voyagers  were  visiting  the  Californian  coast  in  increasing 
numbers,  and  were  bringing  or  sending  back  glowing  reports 


394  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  the  salubrity  and  rich  resources  of  that  country.  There  was 
no  doubt  of  Mexico's  title  to  it,  but  neither  was  there  any  doubt 
of  Mexico's  inability  to  hold  it  with  a  strong  hand.  Russia  had 
attempted  to  seize  a  part  of  it,  but  had  been  warned  off  by  the 
United  States.  France  had  some  thought  of  at  least  becom 
ing,  as  a  Catholic  power,  the  protector  of  the  Catholic  people  of 
California.  Great  Britain  recalled  the  discoveries  of  Drake 
along  that  coast,  and  coveted  California  as  an  annex  to  the 
Oregon  territory  which  she  claimed.  But  the  United  States  also 
claimed  Oregon,  and  cherished  the  scheme  of  continental  domin 
ion  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  So  an  American  army  of 
ficer,  John  Charles  Fremont,  was  sent  to  explore  the  passes  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains  and  to  spy  out  avenues  of  invasion  of  the 
coveted  region,  while  Americans  in  California  itself  more  and 
more  assumed  an  air  of  proprietorship  superior  to  that  of  the 
Spanish-Mexican  inhabitants.  A  war  with  Mexico  would  make 
that  region  ours. 

The  joint  resolution  suggested  by  Tyler  passed  the  House  on 
January  25,  1845,  by  a  vote  of  120  to  98.  It  provided  that  the 
territory  rightfully  belonging  to  the  Republic  of  Texas  might 
be  erected  into  a  new  State  of  this  Union,  to  be  called  the  State 
of  Texas,  with  a  republican  form  of  government;  that  all 
boundary  disputes  between  Texas  and  other  countries  should  be 
settled  by  the  United  States;  and  various  other  details  of  do 
mestic  interest.  In  the  Senate  it  was  objected  that  it  would  be 
unconstitutional  for  Congress  thus  to  admit  into  the  Union  a 
State  formed  of  foreign  territory,  and  accordingly  an  amend 
ment  was  added,  .giving  the  President  the  alternative  of  nego 
tiating  another  treaty  of  annexation.  Thus  amended,  the  reso 
lution  was  adopted  by  the  Senate  by  a  vote  of  twenty-seven  to 
twenty-five,  and  it  was  readopted  by  the  House  by  a  vote  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty-two  to  seventy-six.  That  was  on  March  1, 
1845,  three  days  before  the  end  of  Tyler's  administration.  Two 
Democratic  senators,  Benton  and  Tappan,  voted  for  the  resolu 
tion  only  because  McDuffie  had  given  them  to  understand  that 
Tyler  would  take  no  action  upon  it  but  would  leave  it  for  his 
successor,  Polk,  and  Polk  was  believed  to  be  in  favor  of  negoti 
ating  another  treaty.  McDuffie's  forecast  of  Tyler's  course  was, 
however,  an  error,  and  so  was  that  belief  concerning  Polk. 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  395 

Without  an  hour's  delay  Tyler  sent  a  messenger  to  the  govern 
ment  of  Texas  with  the  offer  of  annexation  and  admission  to  the 
Union.  A  few  days  later  the  Mexican  minister  at  Washington 
demanded  his  passports  and  went  home,  and  in  May  following, 
the  United  States  minister  was  recalled  from  Mexico. 

Meantime  Great  Britain  and  France  were  untiring  in  their 
efforts  to  defeat  annexation,  even  at  the  eleventh  hour.  In 
March,  before  the  news  of  the  passage  of  the  resolution  was 
known  in  Texas,  the  preliminaries  of  a  treaty  were  signed,  under 
which  Mexico  was  to  recognize  the  independence  of  Texas  and 
Texas  was  to  pledge  herself  not  to  become  annexed  to  the  United 
States  or  any  other  power.  Before  this  compact  was  finally 
completed  and  ratified,  however,  the  news  of  the  passage  of  the 
annexation  resolution  reached  Texas,  and  all  other  schemes  were 
incontinently  dropped  in  favor  of  accepting  the  offer  of  the 
United  States.  A  convention  was  called  to  act  upon  it,  which 
met  on  July  4.  The  first  question  put  was,  Shall  the  treaty 
with  Mexico,  negotiated  by  Great  Britain  and  France,  be  rati 
fied?  Every  delegate  save  one  voted,  No.  The  next  question 
was,  Shall  the  offer  of  annexation  to  and  admission  into  the 
United  States  be  accepted?  Every  delegate  save  one  voted, 
Yes.  A  popular  election  on  the  question  was  then  ordered,  and 
on  October  13  the  people  of  Texas,  with  only  a  few  dissenting 
votes,  ratified  the  action  of  the  convention.  In  his  message  to 
Congress  at  the  opening  of  its  session  in  December,  President 
Polk  recited  what  had  )been  done,  and  recommended  the  adop 
tion  of  a  joint  resolution  erecting  Texas  into  a  State  of  the 
Union.  Innumerable  protests  and  petitions  against  this  action 
were  presented  to  Congress,  from  the  Free  States,  but  in  vain. 
The  resolution  was  adopted  and  was  approved  by  the  President 
on  December  29.  On  February  19,  1846,  the  new  state  govern 
ment  of  Texas  was  formally  installed. 

The  course  of  Mexico  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Back  in 
August,  1843,  the  Mexican  president,  Santa  Anna,  had  informed 
our  government  that  the  incorporation  of  Texas  into  the  terri 
tory  of  the  United  States  would  be  considered  equivalent  to  a 
declaration  of  war,  and  that  immediately  upon  such  incorpora 
tion  Mexico  would  declare  war,  "leaving  to  the  civilized  world 
to  determine  with  regard  to  the  justice  of  the  cause. "  To  this 


396  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

a  resentful  but  evasive  reply  was  made,  the  United  States  chal 
lenging  the  correctness  of  Mexico's  information  of  its  annexa- 
tionist  designs,  but  giving  no  counter-facts.  Three  months  later 
Mexico  repeated  the  warning,  and  the  United  States  replied 
that  its  conduct  would  not  be  affected  by  anything  which  the 
Mexican  government  might  say  or  do;  and  that  it  regarded 
Texas  as  an  independent  nation  with  which  it  was  free  to  deal 
without  consulting  any  other  country.  After  these  things  the 
prompt  suspension  of  diplomatic  relations  between  the  two  coun 
tries,  already  noted,  was  inevitable.  A  little  later,  in  June, 
1845,  the  Mexican  army  was  placed  on  a  war  footing,  and  in 
July  Santa  Anna  recommended  to  his  Congress  a  declaration  of 
war  as  soon  as  annexation  was  actually  effected  or  Texas  was 
invaded  by  American  troops.  The  American  reply  was  to  send 
General  Taylor  with  an  army  not  merely  into  Texas  but  across 
it  to  the  Nueces  River,  with  headquarters  about  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  from  the  Mexican  frontier.  A  few  months  later  he 
asked  permission  to  move  directly  to  the  Rio  Grande. 

The  United  States  was  just  then,  however,  trying  diplomatic 
methods  to  gain  its  ends  without  war.  Acting  upon  a  mistaken 
hint  from  a  confidential  agent  that  Mexico  desired  to  reestab 
lish  relations,  the  President  and  his  cabinet  prepared  to  send 
John  Slidell  as  a  special  commissioner  to  that  country,  to  nego 
tiate  for  the  purchase  of  California  and  New  Mexico.  It  was 
supposed  that  those  regions  could  be  bought  for  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  million  dollars,  but  Polk  and  his  cabinet  were  willing 
to  pay  forty  millions  if  necessary.  Polk  afterward  said  that 
he  sought  this  action  for  fear  of  British  designs  upon  California. 
In  this  he  was  doubtless  sincere,  and  there  was  some  apparent 
ground  for  his  apprehensions. 

Before  actually  sending  Slidell,  inquiries  were  made  through 
Black,  the  American  consul  who  still  remained  in  Mexico  City, 
as  to  the  probable  attitude  of  the  Mexican  government  toward 
such  a  proposal.  He  reported  that  the  Mexican  government 
was  disposed  to  receive  a  commissioner  who  should  come  with 
full  powers  to  settle  the  disputes  between  the  two  countries  "in 
a  peaceable,  reaspnable,  and  honorable  manner."  But  an  indis 
pensable  prerequisite  was  the  withdrawal  of  the  American  naval 
squadron  which  was  menacing  Vera  Cruz.  Polk  and  his  cabinet 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  397 

accordingly  withdrew  the  fleet  and  instructed  Slidell  to  pro 
ceed  to  Mexico.  He  was  first  to  seek  settlement  of  the  long 
standing  claims  for  indemnities.  In  connection  therewith  he 
was  to  take  up  the  boundary  question.  He  was  to  contend  that 
Texas  clear  to  the  Rio  Grande  and  up  that  stream  to  El  Paso 
was  included  in  the  Louisiana  purchase  and  therefore  belonged 
to  the  United  States.  For  the  recognition  of  that  boundary, 
and  the  cession  of  New  Mexico,  the  United  States  would  itself 
pay  the  old  claims  of  its  citizens  and  would  in  addition  pay 
Mexico  five  million  dollars.  An  effort  was  also  to  be  made  to 
purchase  California,  or  as  much  of  it  as  possible.  For  the  north 
ern  part  of  it,  down  to  and  including  San  Francisco,  twenty 
millions  would  be  paid,  and  for  all  down  to  Monterey,  twenty- 
five  millions,  in  addition  to  the  claims.  It  may  be  doubted,  how 
ever,  that  Polk  would  at  that  time  have  insisted  upon  the  pur 
chase  of  California  as  a  sine  qua  non.  Some  of  Slidell's 
subsequent  correspondence  indicated  that  a  settlement  would 
have  been  accepted  merely  on  the  basis  of  recognition  of  the 
Rio  Grande  boundary  and  the  payment  of  the  claims.  On  the 
face  of  his  instructions,  however,  as  known  to  and  understood 
by  the  Mexican  government,  he  was  to  seek  all  those  further  ac 
quisitions. 

Thus  commissioned,  Slidell  went  to  Vera  Cruz  at  the  end  of 
November;  but  when  Black  told  the  Mexican  foreign  minister 
of  his  approach  he  was  told  that  the  Mexican  government  was 
not  expecting  him  and  was  not  prepared  to  receive  him,  and 
that  his  appearance  at  the  capital  might  be  disastrous.  Black 
was  asked,  therefore,  to  stop  Slidell  from  coming  up  from  Vera 
Cruz.  It  was  too  late,  but  he  managed  to  intercept  him  at 
Puebla,  where  he  gave  him  the  message  from  the  foreign  minis 
ter.  Slidell's  answer  was  to  push  right  on  to  Mexico  City,  and 
to  send  a  copy  of  his  credentials  to  the  minister  with  an  in 
quiry  as  to  when  he  could  be  received.  The  reply  came  that 
the  matter  would  have  to  be  referred  to  the  Council  of  State. 
Delay  ensued,  and  trumpery  objections  were  made  to  Slidell's 
credentials,  with  the  result  that  the  Council  of  State  finally  de 
cided  that  he  ought  not  to  be  received.  The  fact  was,  doubtless, 
that  the  government  of  President  Herrera  wanted  to  receive 
Slidell  and  treat  with  him,  but  it  was  just  then  fighting  for  its 


398  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

life  against  a  revolution  and  feared  that  by  so  doing  it  would 
injure  itself.  A  few  weeks  later,  in  January,  the  revolution  was 
successful,  and  Herrera  was  succeeded  by  Paredes.  Slidell  left 
Mexico  City  and  went  to  Jalapa;  where  he  continued  his  cor 
respondence  with  the  new  government  and  sought  to  be  received. 
But  at  last,  on  March  15,  he  was  finally  and  decisively  told  that 
he  could  not  be  received.  The  United  States,  he  was  told,  was 
threatening  Mexico  with  troops  on  the  Rio  Grande,  the  rights 
of  Mexico  had  been  violated  in  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and 
the  United  States,  instead  of  treating  on  Texas  alone,  was  seek 
ing  to  introduce  other  subjects — to  wit,  the  old  claims,  and 
the  purchase  of  California — which  Mexico  was  not  willing  to 
consider.  Slidell  thereupon  asked  for  his  passports  and  re 
turned  home.  It  was  unfortunate  that  he  was  not  received,  but 
the  fault  lay  largely  with  the  insecure  status  of  the  Mexican 
government,  and  with  its  suspicions  of  and  resentment  toward 
the  United  States.  Meantime  American  troops  were  sent  to 
the  Rio  Grande.  On  April  12  they  were  warned  by  the  Mexican 
commander  at  Matamoros  to  retire  beyond  the  Nueces.  They  re 
fused.  On  April  24  a  party  of  American  dragoons  was  am 
bushed  by  Mexicans,  on  the  Texan  side  of  the  Rio  Grande,  and 
was  captured  after  a  fight  in  which  several  were  killed.  News 
of  this  reached  Washington  on  May  9,  and  four  days  later  Con 
gress  overwhelmingly  approved  the  president 's  assertion  that  war 
had  been  begun  by  Mexico's  own  act,  and  authorized  him  to 
prosecute  it  in  return. 

With  the  war  which  ensued  we  have  here  little  to  do.  Its 
story  belongs  not  to  diplomatic  but  to  military  history.  It  was 
intensely  unpopular  throughout  a  large  part  of  the  United 
States,  where  it  was  recognized  as  a  needless  aggression  designed 
and  waged  for  the  extension  of  the  slave  power,  an  estimate  of 
it  which  in  the  last  analysis  was  correct.  The  decisive  victories 
which  were  won  by  our  troops  aroused  much  enthusiasm  among 
a  part  of  the  nation,  but  did  not  blind  others  to  the  iniquitous 
nature  of  the  whole  proceeding.  In  the  first  general  election 
in  the  United  States  after  the  beginning  of  the  war,  in  Novem 
ber,  1846,  a  House  of  Representatives  was  chosen  with  a  ma 
jority  hostile  to  the  administration  and  its  war  policy,  and  when 
that  House  assembled  in  the  fall  of  1847,  it  adopted  a  resolu- 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  399 

tion  declaring  that  the  war  had  been  "unnecessarily  and  un 
constitutionally  begun  by  the  President  of  the  United  States." 
Nevertheless,  Congress  did  not  refuse  the  money  appropriations 
necessary  for  prosecuting  the  campaign,  and  the  war  went  on. 
The  theater  of  operations  was  extended  so  as  to  involve  not 
merely  Texas  and  the  Rio  Grande  boundary,  but  also  New  Mexico 
and  California.  The  discrepancy  in  belligerent  efficiency  be 
tween  the  two  countries  was  of  course  enormous,  and  the  result 
of  the  conflict  was  never  for  a  moment  in  doubt.  Early  in  the 
war  another  domestic  revolution  occurred  in  Mexico,  the  result 
of  which  was  the  downfall  of  the  Paredes  government  and  the 
accession  of  Santa  Anna  to  the  presidency.  That  restless  and 
ambitious  chieftain  had  been  in  exile  at  Havana,  Cuba,  and  in 
some  way  the  impression  was  received  that  if  he  were  permitted 
to  return  to  Mexico  and  could  regain  authority  there,  he  would 
make  peace  with  the  United  States.  This  impression,  received  by 
Slidell,  was  by  him  conveyed  to  Polk,  who  thereupon  gave  orders 
to  the  naval  officers  who  were  blockading  the  Gulf  ports  of  Mex 
ico  that  Santa  Anna  should  be  permitted  to  pass  them  and  enter 
the  country.  This  was  done,  but  the  result  was  disappointing. 
Santa  Anna  showed  himself  no  more  inclined  toward  peace  than 
Paredes  had  been,  while  he  was  a  far  more  formidable  military 
opponent. 

Repeated  attempts  at  negotiations  were  made  by  Polk  during 
the  progress  of  the  war,  notably  through  the  agency  of  N.  P. 
Trist,  the  chief  clerk  of  the  state  department,  who  was  sent  for 
the  purpose  along  with  the  army  which  advanced  from  Vera 
Cruz  upon  the  Mexican  capital.  Trist  was  commissioned  to  offer 
peace  upon  the  same  general  terms  as  were  proposed  by  Slidell, 
excepting  that  the  cash  prices  offered  were  to  be  reduced  by  five 
million  dollars  each,  and  he  was  to  seek  the  acquisition  of  the 
Lower  California  Peninsula,  and  the  right  of  way  for  a  canal 
or  railroad  across  the  Isthmus  of  Tehuantepec.  The  beginning 
of  Trist 's  mission  was  marred  with  an  unseemly  quarrel  between 
him  and  General  Scott,  the  commander  of  the  army,  over  prece 
dence,  as  a  result  of  which  Trist  was  compelled  to  seek  the  as 
sistance  of  the  British  minister  to  Mexico  and  his  secretary,  in 
transmitting  to  the  Mexican  government  a  letter  from  the  Amer 
ican  secretary  of  state,  James  Buchanan.  The  difficulty  was 


400  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

soon  afterward,  however,  composed.  In  reply  to  the  overtures 
of  Trist,  or  of  Buchanan,  Santa  Anna  intimated  that  he  would 
enter  upon  negotiations  for  peace  at  once  if  he  were  paid  ten 
thousand  dollars  in  advance,  as  a  sort  of  retaining  fee,  and  were 
promised  one  million  dollars  on  the  conclusion  of  peace.  The 
former  sum  was  accordingly  paid  by  General  Scott,  at  the  be 
ginning  of  August,  1847,  but  Santa  Anna  made  no  movement 
toward  peace  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  two  more  im 
portant  battles  were  fought.  Then  Scott  proposed  an  armis 
tice  for  the  purpose  of  negotiation,  to  which  Santa  Anna  agreed. 
Mexican  commissioners  met  Trist  and  negotiations  began.  Trist 
was  naturally  in  doubt  as  to  the  effect  of  the  recent  military 
operations  upon  the  terms  of  peace  which  he  had  previously 
been  authorized  to  offer,  and  was  somewhat  hesitant  if  not  waver 
ing  in  his  attitude,  and  when  the  Mexicans  submitted  counter 
proposals  decidedly  at  variance  with  his  instructions  he  deemed 
it  prudent  to  make  no  reply  to  them  until  he  had  submitted 
them  to  his  principals  at  Washington.  The  President  was 
strangely  displeased  at  this,  and,  hearing  that  Trist  was  thus 
sending  home  for  instructions,  and  without  waiting  for  Trist 's 
own  letter  to  arrive,  he  ordered  the  immediate  recall  of  the  em 
barrassed  envoy.  The  armistice  was  meanwhile  terminated,  hos 
tilities  were  resumed,  the  Mexican  capital  was  entered  by  the 
American  troops,  and  Santa  Anna  abdicated  the  presidency. 
Soon  afterward  the  new  Mexican  government  sent  commission 
ers  to  Trist  to  seek  terms  of  peace.  Trist  had  by  this  time  re 
ceived  notice  of  his  recall,  but  the  Mexicans  had  not  been  offi 
cially  informed  of  that  fact,  and  were  therefore  willing  to  as 
sume  that  he  was  still  commissioned  to  treat  with  them.  Trist 
accepted  their  suggestion  and  negotiated  with  them  the  treaty 
of  Guadalupe-Hidalgo,  which  was  signed  on  February  2,  1848. 
Despite  the  fact  that  Trist 's  authority  to  negotiate  it  had  been 
withdrawn,  Polk  accepted  the  treaty  and  submitted  it  to  the 
Senate ;  by  which  body  it  was  ratified  on  March  10,  1848.  The 
vote  on  ratification  was  38  to  14,  most  of  the  opposing  votes  com 
ing  from  those  who  wished  to  proceed  to  the  conquest  and  an 
nexation  of  the  whole  of  Mexico.  This  extravagant  policy  was 
advocated  by  Buchanan,  the  secretary  of  state,  and  by  Walker, 
the  secretary  of  war,  and  indeed  by  all  the  cabinet  excepting 


AGGRESSION  AND  EXPANSION  401 

the  attorney  general,  Clifford,  as  well  as  by  a  number  of  sena 
tors,  and  it  was  approved  by  a  considerable  part  of  the  public. 
Polk  resolutely  resisted  it,  however,  and  overruled  his  own  cabi 
net  in  accepting  and  pressing  to  ratification  the  treaty  negotiated 
by  the  commissioner  whom  he  himself  had  deprived  of  authority 
and  had  recalled. 

The  treaty  of  Guadalupe-Hidalgo,  then,  restored  peace  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico  and  of  course  confirmed  the  title 
of  this  country  to  Texas.  It  also  gave  to  the  United  States  all 
the  territory  north  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  Gila  River,  includ 
ing  nearly  all  of  what  is  now  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  Cali 
fornia,  Nevada,  Utah,  etc.  In  return  for  this  vast  and  inval 
uable  acquisition  of  territory,  the  United  States  paid  to  Mexico 
the  sum  of  fifteen  million  dollars,  and  assumed  in  addition  the 
satisfaction  of  the  claims  of  American  citizens  against  Mexico 
to  an  amount  not  exceeding  $3,250,000.  The  United  States, 
moreover,  undertook  to  protect  Mexico  from  the  incursions  of 
Indian  tribes  along  the  Gila  River  boundary,  a  stipulation  which 
was  not  efficiently  fulfilled.  As  a  result  of  the  failure  to  ful 
fil  it,  Mexico  suffered  much  from  Indian  depredations,  and  many 
complaints  were  made  and  claims  for  indemnity  were  preferred 
by  the  Mexican  government  and  its  citizens  against  the  United 
States.  On  the  other  hand,  the  United  States  put  forward  coun 
ter-claims  concerning  the  control  of  the  Mesilla  Valley,  and 
manifested  a  desire  to  acquire  a  considerable  strip  of  land  south 
of  the  Gila  River,  as  a  route  for  a  projected  railroad  across  the 
continent.  A  protracted  controversy  arose,  which  grew  steadily 
more  acrimonious  and  indeed  seemed  to  threaten  the  peaceful 
relations  between  the  two  countries.  In  1853,  however,  a  solu 
tion  of  the  problem  was  sought  and  found  through  diplomatic 
means.  James  Gadsden  of  South  Carolina  was  sent  to  Mexico 
to  negotiate  with  the  foreign  minister  of  that  country  for  a 
rectification  of  the  boundary  and  general  settlement  of  claims. 
He  first  made  a  treaty  under  which  Mexico  was  to  cede  to  the 
United  States  the  northern  part  of  the  State  of  Sonora,  the 
United  States  was  to  be  released  from  all  Mexican  claims,  public 
or  private,  and  the  United  States  was  to  pay  Mexico  fifteen 
million  dollars  and  to  assume  responsibility  for  all  American 
claims  against  Mexico  and  to  pay  them  to  the  amount  of  not 

VOL.  I — 26 


402  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

more  than  five  million  dollars.  The  Senate,  however,  insisted 
upon  radically  amending  this  treaty  before  ratifying  it.  Under 
the  amendment  Mexico  was  to  cede  much  less  territory,  merely 
the  strip  long  shown  on  the  maps  as  the  "Gadsden  purchase," 
the  United  States  was  to  be  freed  from  all  obligations  to  prevent 
Indian  raids,  the  matter  of  claims  on  both  sides  was  left  un 
settled  and  unmentioned,  and  the  United  States  was  to  pay 
Mexico  the  sum  of  ten  million  dollars. 


XV 

OREGON 

ANOTHER  important  issue  in  our  foreign  relationships 
was  associated  with  that  of  Texas  and  Mexico  politically 
and  popularly  in  the  closest  possible  manner,  while  geographic 
ally  and  diplomatically  it  had  scarcely  the  slightest  connection 
with  it.  Indeed,  the  only  real  point  of  contact  with  Texas 
and  Mexico  was  in  the  fact  that  at  the  climax  of  the  Mississippi 
controversy,  when  preparations  were  begun  to  take  Louisiana 
from  France  either  by  purchase  or  by  force,  and  we  began  those 
negotiations  which  gave  us  a  claim  upon  Texas,  the  Lewis  and 
Clark  expedition  was  sent  up  the  Missouri  River  and  over  the 
mountains  to  explore  the  Oregon  region  from  inland,  and  thus 
to  confirm  the  claim  to  it  which  had  first  been  established  by 
Gray's  discovery  of  the  Columbia  River.  In  the  same  year, 
therefore,  and  as  a  part  of  the  same  extended  activities,  we  se 
cured  a  quasi-tit\Q  to  both  Texas  and  Oregon,  which,  however,  in 
both  cases  we  long  neglected  to  enforce.  In  order  justly  to  ap 
preciate  the  various  aspects  of  the  Oregon  controversy,  however, 
we  must  go  back  to  an  earlier  date. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  Spain  claimed  all 
of  the  Western  Hemisphere.  Before  its  end  Drake  had  entered 
the  Pacific  Ocean  and  visited  the  California  and  Oregon  coasts, 
reaching  the  latter  perhaps  first  of  all  white  men;  but  it  does 
not  appear  that  any  claim  of  English  ownership  was  then  or 
therefore  made.  At  the  partitioning  of  the  world  under  the 
treaty  of  Ryswick,  while  much  of  the  eastern  part  of  North 
America  was  conceded  to  France,  and  a  little  to  England,  all 
west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  was  still  Spain's,  from  Mexico  to 
Alaska.  Fifty  years  later  the  Russians,  under  the  lead  of  Ber 
ing  the  Dane,  visited  and  claimed  the  northern  part  of  the  Pa 
cific  coast.  The  Spanish  sought  to  retain  the  coast  as  far  north 

403 


404  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

as  Prince  William  Sound,  in  latitude  60,  while  the  Russians  in 
sisted  upon  taking  actual  possession  for  more  than  a  dozen  de 
grees  further  south,  and  manifested  an  inclination  to  seize  the 
coast  as  far  as  San  Francisco,  if  not  all  the  way  to  Mexico.  In 
1778  the  great  British  voyager,  Cook,  skirted  and  surveyed  the 
coast  from  south  of  the  Columbia  River — though  he  did  not  dis 
cover  that  stream — northward  to  Bering  Strait,  but  his  errand 
was  geographical  rather  than  political,  and  he  established  no 
claims  of  title  and  made  no  settlements.  French  voyagers  also 
visited  the  coast  at  various  points,  and  some  proclamations 
of  sovereignty  were  made,  but  were  not  substantiated  with  ac 
tual  occupation.  In  1788  two  American  masters  of  trading  ves 
sels  went  up  the  coast  to  Nootka  Sound  and  spent  several  years 
in  those  waters.  One  of  them,  Kendrick,  with  the  Washington, 
discovered  and  explored  the  Strait  of  San  Juan  de  Fuca,  and 
the  other,  Gray,  with  the  Columbia,  in  1791,  discovered  the 
Columbia  River  and  explored  it  for  some  distance.  Two  years 
later  the  British  explorer,  Mackenzie,  scaled  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  and  crossed  Oregon  to  the  coast.  Meantime  in  1789  both 
England  and  Spain,  following  in  the  wake  of  Kendrick  and 
Gray,  strove  to  make  settlements  on  Nootka  Sound.  Both  failed, 
but  a  diplomatic  controversy  over  sovereignty  arose,  which  cul 
minated  in  the  Nootka  treaty  of  1790,  under  which  Spanish 
sovereignty  was  nominally  recognized  but  Great  Britain  was 
confirmed  in  full  commercial  rights.  Five  years  later,  without 
any  public  or  formal  statement,  Spain  abandoned  the  entire  coast 
north  of  the  present  northern  boundary  of  California. 

There  was  some  pretense  on  the  part  of  France  that  the  Oregon 
territory  was  included  in  Louisiana.  For  this  there  was  no  con 
vincing  ground.  Louisiana  did  not  extend  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  But  certainly  if  Oregon  had  been  a  part  of  the 
Louisiana  territory,  France's  title  to  it  was  completely  extin 
guished  by  her  sale  of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States  in  1803. 
Such  title  was  not,  however,  seriously  regarded  by  the  United 
States,  and  our  claim  to  Oregon  was  based  upon  discovery  and 
exploration,  and  attempts  were  made  to  confirm  it  by  occupa 
tion.  In  1811  the  American  trading  settlement  of  Astoria  was 
made,  on  the  site  of  the  present  Oregon  city  of  that  name,  and 
though  a  year  later  it  was  betrayed  into  British  hands  it  was 


OREGON  405 

restored  to  American  possession,  at  least  in  name,  by  the  treaty 
of  Ghent  in  1814.  At  about  the  same  time  British  settlements 
were  made  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  rivalry  for  pos 
session  began.  In  the  Florida  treaty  of  1819  the  United  States 
explicitly  acquired  all  of  whatever  title  Spain  still  nominally 
had  to  the  region  north  of  California;  and  soon  afterward  the 
Russians  were  warned  off  that  part  of  the  coast  and  by  the 
treaty  of  1824  were  confined  to  the  region  north  of  latitude 
54  degrees,  40  minutes.  With  France,  Spain,  and  Russia  thus 
eliminated,  the  Oregon  region  was  left  to  the  dual  competition 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  That  region  extended 
from  latitude  42  to  54  degrees,  40  minutes  north,  and  from  the 
watershed  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The 
whole  of  it  was  claimed  by  both  of  the  two  powers. 

The  American  claim  of  title  had  five  major  grounds.  One 
was  that  of  the  Spanish  cession  under  the  Florida  treaty. 
There  was  no  question  but  that  Spain  had  originally  had  a  bet 
ter  title  than  any  other  power  to  that  region.  There  was  in  it, 
no  doubt,  this  serious  flaw,  that  she  had  failed  actually  to  occupy 
and  settle  the  country.  But  even  so,  her  title  remained  su 
perior  to  any  other.  For  neither  had  Great  Britain  made  any 
settlements  on  that  coast,  and  the  Nootka  treaty  granted  to 
her  only  commercial  rights.  As  for  France  and  Russia,  their 
claims  were  much  weaker  still.  The  second  basis  of  the  Ameri 
can  claim  was  the  discovery  and  exploration  of  the  Columbia 
River  by  an  American  citizen;  the  old  rule  being  that  the  dis 
coverer  of  the  mouth  of  a  river  could  claim  title  to  all  lands 
drained  by  it.  The  third  was  the  explorations  of  Lewis  and 
Clark.  The  fourth  was  the  Louisiana  purchase,  by  which  we 
certainly  acquired  any  title  which  France  may  have  had  to  the 
region.  The  fifth  was  the  making  by  Americans  of  the  first 
permanent  settlement  in  the  territory,  at  Astoria.  The  British 
claim  was  based  partly  on  Cook's  voyage  along  that  coast,  partly 
on  the  Nootka  treaty,  and  partly  on  the  explorations  and  dis 
coveries  of  Mackenzie  and  others  at  the  headwaters  and  on 
the  upper  reaches  and  tributaries  of  the  Columbia  River.  The 
weak  points  of  these  were  that  Cook  made  no  settlements,  that 
the  treaty  in  question  was  purely  commercial  and  not  at  all 
political,  and  that  it  was,  according  to  custom,  the  discovery 


406  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

of  the  mouth  and  not  the  source  of  a  river  that  gave  title  to  its 
valley. 

The  diplomatic  controversy  began  in  1801,  when  Rufus  King 
for  the  United  States  and  Lord  Hawkesbury  for  Great  Britain 
sought  to  settle  various  boundary  disputes.  These  related  chiefly 
to  Passamaquoddy  Bay  and  other  parts  of  the  eastern  boundary, 
but  an  attempt  was  made  to  define  the  line  all  the  way  across 
the  continent.  Before  the  treaty  could  be  ratified,  the  Louisiana 
purchase  was  effected,  and  the  interests  of  this  country  in  the 
Northwest  were  thus  enormously  increased.  The  Senate  there 
fore  struck  out  of  the  King-Hawkesbury  treaty  all  matter  re 
lating  to  that  boundary,  whereupon  the  British  government 
refused  to  accept  it,  and  the  convention  came  to  naught.  In 
1807  the  matter  came  up  again.  Monroe  and  Pinckney  for 
the  United  States,  and  Lords  Holland  and  Auckland  for  Great 
Britain,  concluded  a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce  to  succeed 
the  commercial  clauses  of  Jay's  treaty,  which  were  expiring. 
The  British  commissioners  then  suggested  some  additional  ar 
ticles,  one  of  which  would  deal  with  the  northwestern  boundary. 
Their  proposal  was  that  the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  latitude 
should  be  the  boundary  westward  from  the  Lake  of  the  Woods 
"as  far  as  the  territories  of  the  United  States  extend,"  but  only 
as  far  as  the  Rocky  Mountains;  for  it  was  expressly  stipulated 
by  them  that  nothing  in  the  article  should  apply  "to  the  North 
west  coast  of  America,  or  to  the  territories  belonging  to  or 
claimed  by  either  party  to  the  westward  of  the  Stony  Moun 
tains."  The  American  commissioners  objected  to  the  phrase 
first  quoted  above,  as  discriminating  against  the  United  States, 
and  it  was  changed  to  read  ' '  as  far  as  their  respective  territories 
extend,"  and  was  thus  agreed  to.  When  this  article  was  re 
ported  at  Washington  the  Government  accepted  it,  though  with 
a  desire  that  the  proviso  excluding  from  its  operation  the  terri 
tory  west  of  the  mountains  should  be  dropped.  That  proviso, 
Madison  declared,  was  unnecessary,  and  could  have  little  effect 
beyond  an  offensive  intimation  to  Spain  that  the  claims  of  the 
United  States  extended  to  the  Pacific  coast,  and  any  such  offense 
to  Spain  would  be  impolitic.  The  whole  treaty,  however,  was 
withheld  from  the  Senate  on  other  grounds,  and  so  never  came 
into  effect. 


OREGON  407 

After  these  futile  negotiations  the  whole  question  lapsed,  with 
the  exception  of  the  seizure  of  Astoria  and  its  nominal — but  not 
actual — restoration  in  1814,  to  be  taken  up  again  in  1818,  when 
Gallatin  and  Rush  sought  to  dispose  of  the  matters  which  had 
been  left  unsettled  by  the  treaty  of  Ghent.  Adams,  as  secre 
tary  of  state,  informed  the  American  commissioners  that  the 
Spanish  claimed  title  on  the  Pacific  coast,  which  the  United 
States  was  about  to  acquire  in  the  Florida  treaty,  as  far  north 
as  latitude  56,  at  the  northern  end  of  Prince  of  Wales 
Island,  though  the  Russians  had  some  settlements  south  of  that 
point;  and  he  authorized  them  to  renew  the  terms  which  the 
British  had  proposed  in  1807,  fixing  the  boundary  on  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel  as  far  as  the  Rocky  Mountains.  To  this  the 
British  commissioners  agreed.  The  Americans  then  proposed 
to  continue  that  line  straight  to  the  Pacific  coast.  They  argued 
that  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  in  1763  had  fixed  that  line  as  the 
boundary  between  the  British  possessions  at  the  north  and 
Louisiana  and  other  territories  at  the  south ;  that  Gray  had  first 
discovered  the  Columbia  River;  that  Lewis  and  Clark  had  first 
explored  the  inland  regions;  and  that  Americans  had  made  at 
Astoria  the  first  permanent  settlement.  The  British  commis 
sioners  demurred.  They  insisted  that  they  had  acquired  title 
to  the  region  by  virtue  of  Cook's  voyage,  and  of  certain  alleged 
purchases  of  land  from  natives  south  of  the  Columbia  River 
prior  to  the  Revolution.  While  proposing  no  specific  boundary, 
therefore,  they  declined  to  consider  any  which  would  not  give 
them  at  least  an  equal  share  with  the  United  States  in  the  mouth 
of  the  Columbia  River,  and  they  suggested  that  that  stream 
would  form  a  convenient  and  definite  boundary  line.  Finally, 
despairing  of  agreement  upon  the  boundary  at  that  time,  the  . 
British  commissioners  proposed  a  modus  vivendi  for  ten  years,/ 
under  which  the  whole  region  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
the  Pacific,  or  any  portion  of  it  which  might  be  claimed  by 
either  party,  with  all  its  waters,  should  be  free  and  open  to 
the  vessels,  citizens,  and  subjects  of  both  countries  on  equal 
terms.  This  was  accepted  by  the  Americans,  with  the  added 
proviso  that  the  agreement  should  not  be  construed  to  the  preju 
dice  of  any  claim  which  either  party  or  any  other  power  might 
have  to  any  part  of  that  country,  the  only  object  being  to  prevent 


408  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

disputes  and  differences  between  the  signatories.  This  agree 
ment  was  accepted  by  both  governments  and  went  into  effect 
in  1818. 

Following  this,  in  February,  1819,  came  the  Florida  treaty, 
reinforcing  our  title  to  Oregon  with  a  specific  grant  of  all  the 
Spanish  title  north  of  California.  Two  years  later  the  Russian 
ukase  was  issued  claiming  everything  north  of  the  fifty-first 
parallel,  near  the  northern  end  of  Vancouver  Island.  Against 
this  America  and  Great  Britain  protested,  the  former  taking  the 
lead.  In  July,  1823,  Adams  instructed  Rush,  at  London,  to 
make  an  agreement  with  the  British  government  that  there 
after  no  settlement  should  be  made  by  Russians  on  the  coast 
or  coastal  islands  south  of  latitude  fifty-five  (the  middle  of 
Prince  of  "Wales  Island)  ;  or  by  Americans  north  of  latitude 
fifty-one  (the  northern  end  of  Vancouver  Island)  ;  or  by  the 
British  south  of  fifty-one  or  north  of  fifty-five.  ' '  I  mention  the 
latitude  of  fifty-one  degrees,"  wrote  Adams,  ''as  the  bound 
within  which  we  are  willing  to  limit  the  future  settlement  of 
the  United  States,  because  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the  Colum 
bia  River  branches  as  far  north  as  fifty-one  degrees."  The 
Columbia  River  itself,  in  fact,  touches  the  fifty-second  parallel, 
and  its  tributary,  the  Canoe  River,  rises  above  the  fifty-third. 
"As,  however,"  Adams  continued,  "the  line  already  runs  in 
latitude  forty-nine  degrees  to  the  Stony  Mountains,  should  it 
be  earnestly  insisted  upon  by  Great  Britain,  we  will  consent 
to  carry  it  in  continuance  on  the  same  parallel  to  the  sea." 
Again  he  wrote:  "The  right  of  the  United  States  from  the 
forty-second  to  the  forty-ninth  parallel  of  latitude  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  we  consider  as  unquestionable;  being  founded,  first,  on 
the  acquisition  by  the  treaty  of  February  22,  1819,  of  all  the 
rights  of  Spain ;  second,  by  the  discovery  of  the  Columbia  River, 
first  from  the  sea,  at  its  mouth,  and  then  by  land,  by  Lewis 
and  Clark;  and  third,  by  the  settlement  at  its  mouth  in  1811." 

Canning,  the  British  foreign  minister,  requested  an  interview 
with  Rush  in  December,  1823,  to  learn  from  him  as  fully  as 
possible  the  views  of  the  United  States  government  concerning 
the  partition  of  the  Pacific  littoral,  in  order  the  more  intelli 
gently  to  prepare  instructions  for  the  British  minister  to  Russia ; 
it  being  the  mutual  feeling  that  America  and  Great  Britain 


OREGON  409 

should  cooperate  harmoniously  in  resisting  Russia's  extravagant 
pretentious.  This  interview  took  place  at  Canning's  home,  to 
which  he  was  confined  by  illness.  Rush  repeated  to  Canning 
the  views  of  Adams,  and  pointed  out  upon  a  large  map  the 
boundary  lines  proposed  by  him.  The  United  States  was  to 
have  the  coast  from  the  forty-second  to  the  fifty-first  parallel,  or 
nine  degrees,  while  Great  Britain  was  to  have  from  the  fifty- 
first  to  the  fifty-fifth  parallel,  or  only  four  degrees.  Russia 
was  of  course  to  have  vastly  more,  from  the  fifty-fifth  parallel 
indefinitely  northward;  but  those  regions  were  sub-Arctic  and 
largely  uninhabitable.  The  United  States  was  not  inhibited 
from  going  south  of  the  forty-second  parallel,  but  that  region 
belonged  to  Mexico  and  seemed  likely  to  remain  hers.  Great 
Britain  was  obviously  to  get  by  far  the  smallest  of  the  three 
shares,  and  Canning  quickly  realized  that  feature  of  Adams's 
proposal.  He  merely  observed  to  Rush,  however,  that  the 
American  claim  seemed  to  be  much  more  extended  than  the 
British  government  had  anticipated.  Rush  replied  that  he 
hoped  to  be  able,  in  the  course  of  fuller  negotiations,  to  estab 
lish  its  validity,  and  he  left  with  Canning,  at  the  latter's  re 
quest,  a  brief  written  memorandum  of  the  American  proposals. 
A  few  days  later  Canning  inquired  of  Rush  why  the  United 
States  wanted  to  stipulate  anything  concerning  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  British  territory.  "Our  northern  question," 
he  said,  ' '  is  with  Russia,  as  our  southern  with  the  United  States. 
But  do  the  United  States  mean  to  travel  north,  to  get  between 
us  and  Russia  ?  Do  they  mean  to  stipulate  against  Great  Britain 
in  favor  of  Russia?  Or  to  reserve  for  themselves  whatever 
Russia  may  not  want?"  These  inquiries  were  pertinent,  for  it 
certainly  seemed  strange  that  the  United  States  should  attempt 
to  prescribe  the  boundary  between  the  British  and  Russian 
possessions;  unless  through  some  subconscious  adumbration  of 
the  great  national  policy  years  afterward  promulgated  by  Presi 
dent  Polk.  Rush  replied  that  the  fifty-fifth  parallel  had  been 
named  as  the  southern  boundary  of  Russian  America,  because  it 
was  the  line  within  which  the  czar  had  in  1799  granted  privi 
leges  to  his  Russian- American  company;  but  the  United  States 
did  not  mean  to  concede  to  Russia  any  system  of  colonial  ex 
clusion  north  of  that  line,  or  to  forego  for  itself  the  right  of 


410  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

trading  with  the  natives  there.  As  for  the  fifty-first  parallel, 
it  was  named  as  the  northern  limit  of  the  United  States  in  order 
to  include  the  Columbia  River  and  its  tributaries.  Canning  re 
ceived  this  explanation  in  a  noncommittal  way  and  promised 
to  consider  it. 

Before  these  negotiations  between  Rush  and  Canning  took 
place  the  Monroe  Doctrine  had  been  promulgated,  but  the  news 
of  it  did  not  reach  London  until  after  them.  As  soon  as  it  was 
received  Canning  inquired  of  Rush  what  was  meant  by  the 
declaration,  which  he  said  was  new  to  him,  that  the  American 
continents  were  not  to  be  considered  as  subjects  for  future  col 
onization  by  European  powers.  Rush  was  unable  to  answer, 
as  he  had  not  yet  received  instructions  on  the  subject.  Canning 
then  said  that  he  would  either  have  to  be  satisfactorily  advised 
upon  the  matter  before  sending  instructions  to  the  British  min 
ister  at  St.  Petersburg,  or  else  have  to  decline  the  American 
proposal  for  joint  negotiations  with  Russia.  He  added  that  he 
would  prefer  the  latter  course,  anyway,  as  Great  Britain  would 
certainly  object  to  the  noncolonization  principle ;  yet  she  did  not 
wish  to  have  it  discussed  at  present.  Rush  readily  agreed  to 
the  plan  of  separate  instead  of  joint  negotiations  with  Russia, 
realizing  that  if  the  noncolonization  question  were  raised  in 
tripartite  negotiations,  Great  Britain  and  Russia  would  join 
forces  against  America,  and  he  preferred  to  deal  with  them 
separately. 

Thereupon  formal  negotiations  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  began.  The  British  commissioners  were  Messrs. 
Huskisson  and  Stratford  Canning.  The  latter  was  a  cousin  of 
the  foreign  secretary,  who  had  been  British  minister  at  Wash 
ington  and  had  there  discussed  with  Adams  the  question  of  the 
partition  of  the  Pacific  littoral.  A  resolution  had  been  offered 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  to  the  effect  that  the  United 
States  should  establish  its  sovereignty  on  the  Columbia  River. 
Against  this  Stratford  Canning  had  protested  to  Adams,  in 
timating  that  Great  Britain  laid  claim  to  that  territory.  Adams 
in  reply  had  disputed  the  right  of  Great  Britain  to  any  frontage 
whatever  on  the  Pacific,  though  of  course  she  might  claim  one. 
"I  do  not  know,"  he  said,  "what  you  claim  nor  what  you  do 
not  claim.  You  claim  India;  you  claim  Africa;  you  claim — " 


OREGON  411 

"Perhaps,"  interrupted  Stratford  Canning,  "a  piece  of  the 
moon ! "  * '  N-no, ' '  said  Adams,  '  *  I  have  not  heard  that  you  claim 
exclusively  any  part  of  the  moon ;  but  there  is  not  a  spot  on  this 
habitable  globe  that  I  could  affirm  you  do  not  claim;  and  there 
is  none  which  you  may  not  claim  with  as  much  color  of  right  as 
you  can  have  to  the  Columbia  River  or  its  mouth !" 

After  this  striking  of  fire  between  the  flint  and  steel  of  these 
two  mighty  statesmen,  the  Englishman  went  home  on  a  leave 
of  absence  and  never  returned  to  Washington.  When  he  and 
Huskisson  took  up  the  Oregon  negotiations  with  Rush,  however, 
they  began  by  strongly  disputing  the  American  claims,  saying 
that  the  Spanish  title,  which  had  passed  to  America  in  the 
Florida  treaty,  was  invalid,  and  that  Gray's  discovery  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Columbia  River  gave  no  title  to  the  country. 
They  added  that  Great  Britain  considered  the  region  down  to 
the  California  line  to  be  open  to  her  colonization,  together  with 
all  other  unoccupied  areas  of  the  American  continents;  thus 
challenging  not  only  Adams's  proposals  and  claims  concerning 
Oregon  but  a  part  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  well.  After  long 
discussions  the  British  commissioners  offered  to  continue  the 
forty-ninth  parallel  as  the  boundary  west  of  the  Rocky  Moun 
tains  until  it  reached  the  Columbia  River,  and  thence  run  the 
line  down  the  center  of  that  stream  to  the  ocean,  navigation  of 
the  river  to  be  free  to  both  parties.  Rush  rejected  this  plan, 
and  proposed  as  an  alternative  that  the  line  should  follow  the 
forty-ninth  parallel  all  the  way  to  the  ocean,  giving  the  United 
States  the  seven  degrees  between  the  forty-second  and  forty- 
ninth,  and  Great  Britain  the  six  degrees  between  the  forty-ninth 
and  fifty-fifth  parallels.  The  British  commissioners  pondered 
this  proposal  for  a  fortnight  and  then  declined  it,  and  the  nego 
tiations  were  abandoned. 

Soon  after  this  the  United  States  concluded,  on  April  17,  1824, 
a  treaty  with  Russia.  The  year  before,  in  July,  1823,  Adams, 
bristling  with  the  same  aggressive  spirit  that  he  had  manifested 
toward  Stratford  Canning,  had  told  the  Russian  minister,  Baron 
Tuyll,  that  the  United  States  would  "  contest  the  right  of  Russia 
to  any  territorial  establishment  on  this  continent."  We  have 
seen,  however,  that  in  his  instructions  to  Rush,  Adams  receded 
far  from  the  extreme  attitude  which  he  had  assumed  toward 


412  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Stratford  Canning,  conceding  to  Great  Britain  four  or  even 
six  degrees  of  latitude  where  he  had  disputed  her  right  to  any 
space  whatever.  So  now,  in  his  negotiations  with  the  Russians, 
Poletica  and  Nesselrode,  he  conceded  to  Russia  the  ownership 
of  all  the  coast  lands  north  of  the  parallel  of  54  degrees,  40  min 
utes,  a  third  of  a  degree  further  south  than  the  line  which 
he  had  proposed  in  the  British  negotiations.  Adams  first 
expressed  surprise  that  Russia,  without  any  negotiations  with 
the  United  States,  had  claimed  all  the  coast  down  to  the  fifty- 
first  parallel  and  all  waters  within  a  hundred  Italian  miles  of 
the  shore,  and  he  asked  an  explanation  of  that  act.  Poletica 
replied  that  Russia  had  a  historical  title  to  the  land  in  question, 
and  that  she  claimed  the  seas  for  a  hundred  miles  in  order  to 
protect  herself  against  adventurers,  the  most  and  worst  of  whom 
were  Americans.  Moreover,  he  said,  Russia  really  had  a  right 
to  the  entire  sweep  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  from  America  to  Asia, 
north  of  the  fifty-first  parallel,  and  she  was  exercising  much 
moderation  in  limiting  her  sovereignty  to  a  coast  strip  only  a 
hundred  miles  wide.  Adams  vigorously  retorted  that  Russia 
had  no  "historic  title"  south  of  the  fifty-fifth  parallel,  which 
the  czar  had  named  as  her  boundary  in  1799,  and  that  the  claim 
down  to  the  fifty-first  parallel  was  a  new  pretention  without  color 
of  sanction.  The  claim  of  e-xclusive  sovereignty  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  or  even  for  a  hundred  miles  from  shore,  he  scouted  as 
unworthy  of  serious  discussion.  Finally  Henry  Middleton,  who 
had  been  sent  by  Monroe  as  our  minister  to  Russia  in  1820,  was 
authorized  to  negotiate  a  treaty  at  St.  Petersburg,  with  Poletica 
and  Nesselrode,  which  he  did,  as  stated,  in  April,  1824.  Under 
this  treaty  the  Pacific  Ocean  was  recognized  by  Russia  to  be  a 
free  and  open  part  of  the  high  seas,  to  within  the  customary 
three  miles  from  the  shore.  The  people  of  one  country  were 
not  to  resort  without  permission  to  any  place  in  the  dominions 
of  the  other  where  there  was  any  settlement.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  United  States  would  make  no  official  establishment  north  of 
the  parallel  of  54  degrees,  40  minutes,  nor  Russia  any  south  of  it. 
Thus  Russia  was  eliminated  from  the  Oregon  controversy.  It 
was  left  to  Russia  and  Great  Britain  to  contest  the  territory 
north  of  54  degrees,  40  minutes,  and  to  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  to  contest  that  south  of  that  line. 


OREGON  413 

It  will  be  pertinent  here  to  record,  as  having  highly  important 
bearings  upon  long  subsequent  negotiations  between  Great  Brit 
ain  and  America,  the  terms  upon  which  Great  Britain  and  Russia 
settled  their  boundary  dispute  at  the  northwest.  It  was  only  a 
year  after  the  settlement  between  Russia  and  America,  and  the 
Russian  commissioners  were,  as  before,  Nesselrode  and  Poletica, 
while  the  British  were  Stratford  Canning  and  Sir  Charles  Bagot. 
The  line  of  54  degrees,  40  minutes,  agreed  upon  by  Russia  and 
America,  was  challenged  by  Great  Britain.  She  apparently 
feared  that  the  United  States  would  be  able  to  establish  its  own 
ership  of  all  the  coast  up  to  that  point,  although  this  country 
had  repeatedly  offered  to  limit  itself  to  the  fifty-first  or  even 
the  forty-ninth  parallel.  Of  course  a  juncture  between  the 
American  and  Russian  holdings  would  shut  Great  Britain  away 
from  the  sea  altogether.  So  the  British  sought  earnestly  to 
get  access  to  the  sea  north  of  54  degrees,  40  minutes.  At  first 
they  proposed  that  the  Russian  territory  should  stop  at  the 
141st  meridian,  near  Mt.  St.  Elias,  in  latitude  60  north. 
Next  they  proposed  Christian  Sound,  Chatham  Strait,  and  Lynn 
Canal  as  the  boundary,  giving  Great  Britain  all  below  the  fifty- 
sixth  parallel.  Again  they  named  Clarence  Strait  and  the 
Stickeen  River,  giving  them  access  to  the  sea  through  Dixon 
Entrance.  All  these  requests  were  successively  refused  by  the 
Russians,  who  insisted  upon  a  continuous  coast  strip  not  more 
than  thirty  geographical  miles  wide,  all  the  way  down  to  54 
degrees,  40  minutes.  Finally,  the  British  pleaded  that  the 
boundary  line  of  this  strip,  "parallel  to  the  winding  of  the 
coast,"  should  be  drawn  straight  across  such  arms  of  the  sea  as 
Lynn  Canal,  instead  of  around  their  heads;  so  that  the  British 
might  own  their  heads  and  thus  have  access  to  the  sea  through 
them.  This  also  the  Russians  refused,  and  the  treaty  as  finally 
made  conceded  to  Russia  all  the  coastal  islands  and  a  continuous 
strip  of  mainland  coast  not  more  than  thirty  geographical  miles 
wide,  carried  around  the  heads  of  all  bays  and  inlets.  Thus  the 
British  were  entirely  excluded  from  the  sea  north  of  54  degrees, 
40  minutes,  as  the  Russian  government  intended  they  should  be. 
It  was  the  Russian  hope  that  the  United  States  would  assert  and 
maintain  sovereignty  up  to  54  degrees,  40  minutes,  and  thus 
entirely  shut  the  British  away  from  the  sea.  But  this  only 


414  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

made  the  British  more  determined  to  get  a  share  of  the  Oregon 
territory  and  a  coast  line  south  of  54  degrees,  40  minutes. 
/'Negotiations  between  Great  Britain  and  America  were  re 
sumed  at  the  former's  request  in  1826.  Canning  was  still  for 
eign  secretary,  and  Rufus  King  was  the  American  minister  to 
Great  Britain,  but  was  about  to  return  home  and  be  succeeded 
by  Gallatin.  Adams  was  President  and  Clay  was  secretary  of 
state.  King  brought  over  a  note  from  Canning,  suggesting  the 
reopening  of  negotiations,  and  Gallatin  was  accordingly  author 
ized  to  discuss  the  Oregon  question  on  substantially  the  same  lines 
as  those  followed  by  Rush.  There  was,  however,  this  modification, 
that  if  the  forty-ninth  parallel  were  adopted  as  the  boundary, 
and  if  it  crossed  the  Columbia  River  or  any  of  its  branches  at  a 
point  from  which  navigation  to  the  sea  was  possible,  the  river 
should  be  open  to  the  British  for  such  navigation  as  freely  as  to 
Americans.  The  British  commissioners,  Huskisson  and  Adding- 
ton,  demurred  to  the  adoption  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  the 
boundary,  largely  on  the  ground  that  it  would  cut  off  and  give 
to  the  United  States  the  southern  part  of  Vancouver's  Island, 
which  they  regarded  as  quite  inadmissible. 

Gallatin  did  not  insist  upon  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  an  ul 
timatum,  but  said  that  the  United  States  would  adhere  to  it  as 
a  basis  of  final  settlement.  His  idea  was  that  an  arrangement 
might  be  effected  whereby  the  United  States  would  concede  to 
Great  Britain  that  portion  of  Vancouver's  Island  which  lay  south 
of  forty-nine  degrees,  and  Great  Britain  would  in  return  concede 
to  the  United  States  that  portion  of  the  Columbia  River  and  its 
branches  which  lay  north  of  that  parallel.  Huskisson  and 
Addington,  however,  were  equally  resolute  in  sticking  to  the 
Columbia  River  as  the  boundary  line.  But  as  that  would  give 
to  Great  Britain  a  very  large  territory  south  of  forty-nine  de 
grees,  they  suggested  that  the  United  States  might  have,  as  com 
pensation,  the  comparatively  small  area  comprised  in  the  penin 
sula  between  Puget  Sound  and  the  ocean,  now  forming  five  coun 
ties  of  the  State  of  Washington.  This  tract  was  not  one  tenth 
as  large  as  the  territory  below  the  forty-ninth  parallel  which 
they  were  claiming  for  Great  Britain,  and  it  would  have  been, 
moreover,  entirely  detached  from  the  rest  of  the  United  States 
and  accessible  only  by  way  of  the  high  seas  or  by  crossing 


OREGON  415 

British  territory.  Gallatin  instantly  rejected  this  proposal,  de 
clining  even  to  discuss  it.  No  matter  what  might  be  said  in 
favor  of  some  of  its  details,  the  principle  of  it  was  wholly  in 
admissible.  At  this  it  became  evident  that  agreement  was 
impossible,  and  the  commissioners  therefore  decided  to  continue 
the  status  quo.  In  August,  1827,  a  convention  was  concluded 
extending  indefinitely  the  arrangement  for  joint  occupation  of 
the  entire  Oregon  territory  on  equal  terms.  This  convention 
was  ratified  by  the  Senate,  but  a  long  and  acrimonious  debate 
arose  in  Congress,  and  a  resolution  was  introduced  but  not 
passed  authorizing  the  President  to  survey  and  take  possession 
of  the  entire  region,  from  California  to  Alaska.  When  this  was 
defeated,  interest  in  the  matter  lapsed  and  nothing  more  was 
heard  of  it  in  Congress  for  many  years. 

The  problem  was  thus  left  to  the  logic  of  events  as  developed 
in  the  actual  occupation  of  the  territory  by  the  two  rival  powers. 
This  was  an  unsatisfactory  method,  and  it  gave  rise  to  much 
needless  friction  and  ill  will.  The  first  important  settlement 
there  was  that  of  Astoria,  in  1811,  made  by  an  American  fur 
trader,  John  Jacob  Astor.  The  British  Northwest  Company 
regarded  it  with  jealousy  and  animosity,  and  the  British  govern 
ment  actually  asked  the  American  government  to  repudiate 
Mr.  Astor 's  enterprise  and  to  recognize  the  Northwest  Company 
as  the  rightful  proprietor  of  the  place.  This  request  was  of 
course  refused.  Then  the  British  company,  by  means  of  busi 
ness  trickery  and  dishonorable  practices,  succeeded  in  getting 
control  of  the  place,  so  that  when  the  War  of  1812  broke  out, 
and  a  British  naval  force  went  thither  with  orders  ' '  to  take  and 
destroy  everything  American  on  the  northwest  coast,"  Astoria 
was  found  to  be  not  American  but  British,  and  so  was  left  un 
scathed.  At  the  end  of  the  war  the  British  continued  in  pos 
session  of  the  place.  True,  it  was  stipulated  in  the  peace  treaty 
that  all  territory,  places,  and  possessions  taken  by  one  party  from 
the  other  during  the  war  should  be  restored  to  its  former  owner 
without  delay.  But  the  British  pointed  out  that  before  the  war 
had  begun  Astoria  had  passed  into  the  ownership  of  a  British 
company,  and  had  been  renamed  St.  George,  and  therefore  it 
was  not  relinquished.  To  this  Rush,  at  London,  vigorously 
objected,  and  was  so  earnest  and  cogent  in  his  demands  for  the 


416  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

restoration  of  Astoria  to  the  United  States  that  the  British  gov 
ernment  finally  yielded.  It  reserved,  however,  for  future  con 
sideration  the  question  of  absolute  title  to  that  place;  and  the 
Northwest  Company  under  one  diplomatic  pretext  or  another 
continued  to  occupy  it  until  the  final  settlement  in  1845. 

During  the  thirty  years  between  the  end  of  the  War  of  1812 
and  the  final  settlement  of  the  Oregon  controversy,  British 
policy  in  the  region  was  intensely  hostile  to  Americans,  but  was 
ultimately  disastrous  to  British  interests  themselves.  The  entire 
territory  was  assigned  by  the  British  government  to  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company,  and  that  corporation  exploited  it  solely  as  a  fur 
preserve.  Civilized  colonization  was  not  promoted.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  discouraged.  Trading  posts  and  factories  were 
dotted  over  the  territory,  manned  by  British  agents  and  their 
Indian  or  half-breed  retainers.  No  other  settlement  of  any  kind 
was  permitted  to  be  made  within  hundreds  of  miles  of  one  of 
these  establishments,  which  meant  practically  that  there  could 
be  few  others  in  any  part  of  the  territory.  The  Indians  were 
taught  to  regard  Americans  with  aversion,  and  to  believe  that 
nobody  had  any  rights  in  Oregon  save  under  the  British  flag, 
and  they  did  not  venture  to  trade  at  the  two  or  three  posts 
which  Americans  did  succeed  in  establishing.  British  or  Cana 
dian  law  was  declared  to  prevail  in  all  parts  of  the  territory, 
and  the  agents  of  the  company  did  not  hesitate  to  use  violence, 
if  necessary,  to  enforce  that  law  and  to  enforce  their  own  will. 
Doubtless  an  American  company,  similarly  organized  and  con 
ducted,  and  similarly  backed  up  by  the  American  government, 
could  have  gained  an  equal  footing  and  could  have  held  its 
ground  against  the  Hudson  Bay  corporation.  But  no  such 
company  arose,  and  the  United  States  government  had  no 
thought  of  chartering  and  supporting  one.  The  few  Americans 
who  did  go  thither  as  fur  traders  were  helpless  before  the  ten 
times  greater  numbers  of  their  British  rivals.  At  no  time, 
probably,  were  there  more  than  two  hundred  Americans  in  the 
territory,  while  there  were  more  than  two  thousand  British. 
Simpson,  the  governor  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  declared 
that  they  were  "resolved  to  expel  the  Americans  from  traffic 
on  that  coast,"  even  if  it  cost  them  as  much  as  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds. sterling;  and  a  little  later,  in  1839,  one  of  the 


OREGON  417 

American  pioneers  there  declared  that  the  United  States  as  a 
nation  was  unknown  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

The  British  policy  was  not,  obviously,  well  designed  for  the 
establishment  of  secure  and  permanent  sovereignty.  An  empire 
cannot  be  built  upon  scattered  trading  posts,  factories,  and  forts. 
Semi-military  agents  with  Indian  "wives"  and  half-breed 
children,  cannot  found  a  nation.  It  was  obvious  that  the  men 
who  finally  came  in,  with  wives  and  families  of  their  own  race, 
to  develop  agriculture  and  the  other  industries  of  civilization, 
would  become  the  real  possessors  of  the  land.  The  initial  over 
ture  for  such  colonization  was  effected  in  a  peculiar,  probably 
a  unique,  manner.  In  1832,  four  Flathead  Indians  appeared  in 
St.  Louis.  Many  others  of  their  tribe  frequented  that  city  on 
various  errands,  chiefly  pernicious  to  themselves.  But  these 
four  were  earnest  seekers  after  spiritual  light  and  leading.  Up 
in  "the  continuous  woods  where  rolls  the  Oregon  and  hears 
no  sound  save  his  own  dashings,"  they  had  heard  from  some 
trapper  something  of  the  white  man's  God.  From  some  wan 
dering  Iroquis,  also,  they  had  heard  that  the  worship  of  God, 
and  the  study  of  a  book  called  the  Bible,  were  the  secrets  of 
the  superior  strength  of  the  pale-faced  race.  Therefore  these 
four  men,  two  aged  braves  and  two  young  warriors,  traveled 
the  long  trail  from  the  Columbia  to  the  Mississippi,  in  quest  of 
what  they  hoped  would  be  the  salvation  of  their  people.  They 
knew  General  Clark,  who  a  generation  before  had  visited  their 
country  with  his  companion,  Lewis,  and  they  sought  him  out, 
and  were  hospitably  received.  But  they  were  disappointed  in 
their  quest  for  spiritual  light.  The  two  old  men  died  at  St. 
Louis,  and  the  two  young  men  returned  to  Oregon  empty- 
handed  and  heavy-hearted. 

But  a  young  clerk  in  a  shipping  office  noted  their  departure 
and  its  circumstances,  and  reported  the  sad  incident  to  friends 
in  the  East,  at  Pittsburgh.  George  Catlin,  also,  the  writer  and 
painter  of  Indian  scenes,  was  conversant  with  the  case  and  added 
his  testimony.  As  a  result,  Christian  people  were  shamed  and 
spurred  to  action,  and  several  missionaries  hastened  to  Oregon. 
Chief  among  them  were  H.  H.  Spalding  and  Marcus  Whitman, 
young  men,  just  married,  who  took  their  brides  with  them  to 
the  western  rim  of  the  continent.  They  reached  Fort  "Walla 

VOL.  1—27 


418  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Walla  on  September  2,  1836 ;  and  a  new  epoch  in  Oregon  his 
tory  was  that  day  begun.  "We  need  not  here  review  the  ro 
mantic  story  of  their  journey,  or  of  Whitman's  subsequent  ride 
back  to  the  East;  and  the  interminable  controversies  which 
have  arisen  over  it.  What  is  pertinent  and  indisputable  is  that 
Spalding  and  Whitman  were  followed  by  other  missionaries, 
and  by  practical  colonists  with  their  wives  and  families,  intent 
on  establishing  in  Oregon  a  genuine  civilization  radically  dif 
ferent  from  and  incompatible  with  the  sway  of  the  trappers  and 
fur  traders.  The  agents  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  strove 
to  keep  them  back,  by  suasion,  by  deceit,  by  menace,  and  some 
times  by  actual  violence.  Especially  did  they,  and  did  Sir 
George  Simpson,  the  governor  of  the  company  himself,  spread 
through  the  United  States  the  false  impression  that  there  was 
no  wagon  trail  across  the  mountains  and  that  Oregon  was 
practically  inaccessible  by  the  overland  route.  "The  United 
States,"  prophesied  Simpson,  oracularly,  "will  never  possess 
more  than  a  nominal  jurisdiction,  nor  long  possess  even  that,  on 
the  west  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Great  Britain  and 
Russia, ' '  he  continued,  ' '  would  control  the  destiny  of  the  human 
race,  particularly  on  the  western  coast  of  this  continent";  and 
to  promote  that  object  he  urged  British  seizure  and  occupation 
of  San  Francisco. 

The  persistence  of  Americans  in  seeking  to  get  to  Oregon, 
however,  convinced  the  British  that  they  must  change  their  tac 
tics,  and  must  colonize  the  country  with  actual  settlers  if  they 
would  hold  it  permanently.  In  1841  and  1842,  accordingly,  some 
hundreds  of  families  were  brought  in  from  Canada,  and  a 
steady  stream  of  such  migration  was  started.  Exultation  was 
openly  expressed  over  the  fact  that  thus  the  land  would  be 
possessed  in  advance  of  the  coming  of  the  Americans  and  that 
the  latter  would  be  shut  out.  Whitman  was  a  keen  and  in 
terested  observer  of  these  things,  as  he  had  also  been  of  the  vast 
possibilities  of  colonization  in  Oregon.  He  had  heard,  too,  that 
Webster  and  Ashburton  were  negotiating  at  Washington  a  treaty 
which  would  establish  the  boundary  between  the  United  States 
and  British  America,  and  he  feared  that  in  it  Oregon  would  be 
sacrificed.  Accordingly,  having  other  business  in  the  East, 
he  determined  to  return  thither  at  once  and  to  utilize  the  op- 


OREGON  419 

portunity  by  bearing  to  Washington  first-hand  information  of 
the  value  of  Oregon  and  of  the  efforts  which  the  British  were 
making  to  monopolize  it.  He  made  the  arduous  and  perilous 
trip  across  the  continent  in  midwinter,  and  reached  Washing 
ton  early  in  March;  to  find  that  the  boundary  drawn  in  the 
Webster-Ashburton  treaty  stopped  at  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
that  the  Oregon  question  had  been  left  untouched. 

There  are  no  authoritative  records  of  Whitman 's  visit  to  Wash 
ington  or  of  his  doings  there.  His  old  associate,  Spalding,  how 
ever,  subsequently  related  that  he  had  an  interview  with  Webster, 
whom  he  failed  to  convince  of  the  value  of  Oregon;  and  also 
one  with  President  Tyler,  whom  he  did  convince.  Others  have 
said  much  the  same ;  adding  that  Whitman  found  Webster  about 
to  renounce  all  title  to  Oregon  in  exchange  for  fishery  rights 
in  Newfoundland,  and  was  unable  to  stop  him;  but  that  Tyler, 
on  hearing  Whitman's  story,  did  stop  those  negotiations.  For 
this  latter  story  there  seems  to  be  no  good  foundation,  while 
circumstantial  evidence  against  it  is  literally  overwhelming.  No 
reproach  can  truly  fall  upon  the  fame  of  Webster  for  his  attitude 
toward  Oregon.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  ever  for 
a  moment  thought  of  sacrificing  it.  Nor  is  there  reason  for 
regarding  Whitman  as  the  sole  savior  of  Oregon,  without  whom 
that  territory  would  have  been  lost.  But  his  ride  was  heroic, 
his  purpose  was  patriotic,  and  the  service  which  he  rendered  in 
giving  the  Government  and  the  public  accurate  information 
was  exceedingly  valuable.  His  greatest  service  was  rendered  in 
arousing  public  interest  in  Oregon,  in  promoting  migration 
thither,  and  in  demonstrating  the  entire  practicability  of  send 
ing  wagon  trains  across  the  mountains;  disproving  the  senten 
tious  dictum  of  '"'The  Edinburgh  Review"  in  July,  1843,  that 
1  'Oregon  will  never  be  colonized  overland  from  the  Eastern 
States."  At  the  time  when  those  words  were  published,  Whit 
man  was  leading  hundreds  of  wagons  overland  into  the  Colum 
bia  Valley,  with  Fremont,  the  " pathfinder,"  in  his  train. 

That  winter  Oregon  loomed  large  in  Congress.  On  January 
8,  1844,  news  reached  Washington  that  Whitman  had  reached 
Oregon  with  his  great  train  of  colonists,  in  complete  success. 
That  very  day  a  resolution  was  introduced  in  the  Senate  asking 
for  copies  of  all  the  diplomatic  correspondence  relating  to  Ore- 


420  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

gon.  It  did  not  pass,  but  two  days  later  a  like  resolution  was 
passed  by  the  House.  The  impression  was  deepened  that  Great 
Britain  was  gaining  undue  advantages  from  the  joint  occupation 
system,  and  it  was  urged  in  Congress  that  the  required  twelve 
months'  notice  for  terminating  that  arrangement  should  be 
given.  This  was  coupled  with  the  demand,  probably  at  this  time 
first  voiced  by  James  Buchanan,  in  the  Senate,  that  we  should 
insist  upon  having  the  whole  territory  up  to  the  Russian  line  at 
latitude  54  degrees,  40  minutes. 

Unhappily,  there  also  arose,  in  Congress  and  in  the  nation, 
a  bitter  and  unreasoning  animosity  toward  England,  for  the 
first  time  since  the  War  of  1812.  The  old  grievances  of  George 
Ill's  time,  including  the  Stamp  Act  and  the  tea  tax,  were  re 
vamped,  and  there  were  even  wild  appeals  for  war.  Benton,  in 
the  Senate,  said:  "Let  the  emigrants  go  on  and  carry  their 
rifles.  "We  want  thirty  thousand  rifles  in  the  valley  of  the  Ore 
gon;  they  will  make  all  quiet  there,  in  the  event  of  a  war  with 
Great  Britain  for  the  dominion  of  that  country.  Thirty  thou 
sand  rifles  on  the  Oregon  will  annihilate  the  Hudson  Bay  Com 
pany  and  drive  them  off  our  continent."  And  he  added  that 
the  war  would  not  be  confined  to  Oregon,  but  would  embrace 
the  possessions  of  the  two  powers  throughout  the  globe.  There 
were,  it  is  true,  men  of  light  and  leading  who  not  only  did  not 
share  but  strongly  rebuked  these  violent  sentiments;  but  the 
jingo  spirit  was  in  the  ascendant,  toward  Oregon  as  toward 
Mexico,  and  there  was  soon  formulated  the  campaign  war-cry 
of  that  year,  "Fifty-four  forty,  or  fight!" 

Meantime  diplomacy  was  again  busy.  Richard  Pakenham 
was  sent  over  by  the  British  government  early  in  1844  to  nego 
tiate  a  settlement  in  Oregon.  His  work  was  interrupted  by  the 
tragic  death  of  Upshur,  the  secretary  of  state,  at  the  end  of 
February,  but  was  renewed  in  the  summer,  with  Upshur 's  suc 
cessor,  Calhoun.  The  proposals  of  Pakenham  were  the  same 
as  those  of  Huskisson  and  Addington,  in  1827,  while  Calhoun 
renewed  those  of  Rush  and  Gallatin,  offering,  however,  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel  as  an  ultimatum.  Neither  could  make  any  im 
pression  upon  the  other  by  the  mere  rethreshing  of  old  straw. 
At  the  same  time  James  K.  Polk  was  standing  successfully  for 
the  Presidency  on  a  platform  which  asserted  that  the  American 


OREGON  421 

title  to  the  whole  of  Oregon  up  to  the  Russian  line  was  ''clear 
and  unquestionable,"  and  that  "no  part  of  the  same  ought  to 
be  ceded  to  England  or  any  other  power";  and  his  followers 
were  convulsing  the  country  with  the  cry  of  "Fifty-four  forty, 
or  fight ! ' '  Pakenham  therefore  despaired  of  reaching  an  agree 
ment  with  Calhoun,  who  confessed  himself  committed  to  a  policy 
of  "masterly  inactivity,"  and  in  January,  1845,  proposed  that 
the  dispute  be  referred  to  arbitration.  After  a  few  days'  con 
sideration  Calhoun  declined  this  offer,  saying  that  the  President 
(Tyler)  held  that  it  would  be  unadvisable  to  entertain  a  proposal 
to  resort  to  any  other  mode,  so  long  as  there  was  hope  of  ar 
riving  at  a  satisfactory  settlement  by  negotiation.  If  such  hope 
existed,  however,  it  was  certainly  not  shared  by  Pakenham,  nor 
did  Tyler  or  Calhoun  give  other  evidence  of  its  possession. 
Negotiations  were  dropped,  not  to  be  resumed  until  after  Polk 
had  been  installed  as  President  and  had  in  his  inaugural  address 
reaffirmed  the  identical  words  of  his  campaign  platform  about 
the  "clear  and  unquestionable"  title  of  the  United  States  to 
the  entire  territory  of  Oregon,  from  California  to  Russian 
America.  This  declaration  of  Polk's  was  regarded  in  Great 
Britain,  both  officially  and  popularly,  as  a  direct  defiance,  and 
it  was  answered  in  like  spirit.  Not  since  1815  had  the  two  coun 
tries  been  so  near  to  war  as  at  that  time. 

Calhoun  had  returned  to  the  Senate  and  had  been  succeeded 
as  secretary  of  state  by  James  Buchanan;  the  annexation  of 
Texas  had  been  effected,  providing  the  desired  expansion  of 
slave  territory  at  the  South ;  a  war  with  Mexico  was  inevitably 
impending;  and  the  pro-slavery  leaders  who  were  in  control  of 
the  Government  saw  no  reason  why  they  should  embarrass  them 
selves  with  another  war,  with  the  greatest  power  in  the  world, 
for  the  sake  of  enlarging  free  territory  at  the  North.  True,  the 
vehement  and  passionate  demand  of  their  party  platform,  their 
campaign  cry,  and  the  President 's  inaugural  address,  all  pledged 
the  Government  to  insist  upon  having  the  whole  of  Oregon  even 
at  cost  of  war  with  England — "Fifty-four  forty,  or  fight!" 
But  when  one  has  climbed  up  to  the  coveted  coign  of  vantage, 
why  should  he  not  kick  down  the  ladder  behind  him?  The 
campaign  for  Polk  and  the  party  had  been  won  by  virtue  of  the 
Oregon  demand.  Now  let  Oregon  be  repudiated!  In  the  Sen- 


422  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ate,  Calhoun  still  counseled  ''masterly  inactivity."  Whitman 
had  opened  the  way  for  colonization  of  the  territory,  and  if  more 
Americans  than  British  flocked  in,  why,  Oregon  would  become 
ours. 

Buchanan,  as  secretary  of  state,  however,  thought  otherwise, 
and  soon  reopened  negotiations  with  the  British  minister,  Paken- 
ham.  On  July  12,  1845,  he  proposed  that  the  territory  should 
be  divided  by  running  the  line  on  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  clear 
through  to  the  Pacific.  That  would  cut  Vancouver's  Island  into 
two  parts,  but  Buchanan  offered  to  make  free  to  Great  Britain 
any  port  or  ports  that  might  be  desired  on  the  southern  half. 
There  was  no  mention  of  the  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia 
River,  which  Great  Britain  much  desired.  Pakenham  recog 
nized  this  to  be  a  marked  recession  from 5  the  extreme  ground 
taken  in  Folk's  inaugural,  but  he  regarded  it  as  quite  unac 
ceptable,  chiefly  because  of  the  division  of  Vancouver's  Island 
and  the  failure  to  grant  free  navigation  of  the  Columbia  River. 
He  therefore  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  refer  it  to  his  govern 
ment,  but  on  July  29  rejected  it  on  his  own  responsibility  and 
in  terms  which  fell  little  short  of  being  offensive.  He  hoped, 
he  said,  that  Buchanan  would  "be  prepared  to  offer  some  further 
proposals,  more  consistent  with  fairness  and  equity  and  within 
the  reasonable  expectations  of  the  British  government."  A 
month  later  Buchanan  made  a  tart  rejoinder,  and  withdrew  the 
rejected  proposal,  without  suggesting  anything  in  its  place. 
Meantime  throughout  the  United  States  the  cry  of  "Fifty -four 
forty,  or  fight ! ' '  was  raised  again ;  and  ' l  All  Oregon  or  none ! ' ' 
The  North  saw  no  reason  why  we  should  not  fight  for  Oregon 
as  well  as  for  Texas. 

Nothing  more  was  done,  however,  until  December  2,  when 
Polk  sent  his  first  annual  message  to  Congress.  On  March  4 
he  had  insisted  upon  "Fifty-four  forty."  On  July  12  he  re 
ceded  to  forty-nine  with  some  concessions  below  that  line.  On 
December  2  he  swung  back,  inferentially,  to  fifty-four  forty. 
It  was  necessary,  he  said,  to  determine  whether  the  national 
rights  in  Oregon  were  to  be  abandoned  or  firmly  maintained. 
"That  they  cannot  be  abandoned  without  a  sacrifice  of  both 
national  honor  and  interest,  is  too  clear  to  admit  of  doubt." 
And  he  himself  had  defined  those  rights  as  indisputably  cov- 


OREGON  423 

ering  the  entire  territory.  So,  to  bring  matters  to  a  crisis,  he 
recommended  that  the  required  year's  notice  be  given  for  the 
abrogation  of  the  joint  occupation  treaty  of  1827.  What  this 
would  mean  was  suggested  in  the  further  recommendation  that 
the  laws  and  general  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States  be  ex 
tended  over  all  American  settlers  in  all  parts  of  Oregon,  that 
an  Indian  agency  and  sub-agencies  be  established  there,  that 
an  overland  mail  route  to  the  Pacific  be  opened,  and  that  ade 
quate  military  protection  be  afforded  to  the  Oregon  trail — 
the  route  followed  by  colonists  entering  that  territory. 

Even  before  this,  as  early  as  the  latter  part  of  October,  the 
British  government  had  made  it  known  that  it  did  not  approve 
Pakenham 's  course  in  July,  in  so  cavalierly  rejecting  Buchanan's 
offer,  and  it  now  renewed  those  representations,  and  Pakenham 
besought  Buchanan  to  revive  his  proposal.  Two  cabinet  coun 
cils  were  held  over  the  matter,  with  the  result  that  Polk  directed 
Buchanan  to  refuse  the  request;  adding  that  it  was  for  the 
British  government  itself  to  make  the  next  proposal,  if  it  wished 
to  resume  negotiations.  Congress  and  the  country  meanwhile 
made  it  clear  that  they  heartily  supported  Polk 's  policy.  Paken 
ham  again  sought  out  Buchanan,  on  December  27,  begged  him 
to  renew  his  former  offer,  and  handed  him  a  note  stating  that 
the  British  government  had  instructed  him  "  again  to  represent, 
in  pressing  terms,  the  expediency  of  referring  the  whole  ques 
tion  of  an  equitable  division  of  the  territory  to  the  arbitration 
of  some  friendly  sovereign  or  state."  Pakenham  personally 
suggested  that  Switzerland,  or  the  city  of  Hamburg,  or  Bremen, 
be  chosen  as  arbitrator.  Buchanan  replied,  in  conversation, 
that  he  was  strongly  opposed  to  arbitration,  but  that  if  it  were 
decided  upon  he  would  prefer  the  Pope  of  Rome  as  an  arbi 
trator.  As  both  the  disputing  nations  were  Protestant,  and 
therefore  heretic,  the  pope  would  have  no  partiality  toward 
either.  In  this  Buchanan  was  more  bantering  than  earnest, 
a  fact  which  Pakenham  perceived,  and  the  latter  suggested  in 
reply  that  instead  of  to  an  arbitrator  the  dispute  be  referred 
to  a  joint  commission  representing  the  two  countries.  Buchanan 
then  said  seriously  that  it  was  useless  to  talk  of  arbitration, 
for  the  President  would  probably  not  sanction,  and  even  if  he 
did  the  Senate  would  certainly  refuse  to  ratify  any  such  treaty. 


424  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

On  January  3,  1846,  therefore,  Buchanan  formally  declined  the 
arbitration  proposal,  on  the  ground  that  it  assumed  in  advance 
the  validity  of  the  British  title  to  some  part  of  Oregon,  which 
the  United  States  was  not  willing  to  admit.  Pakenham  replied 
with  an  offer  to  submit  to  arbitration  the  question  whether 
either  of  the  powers  had  valid  title  to  any  or  all  of  the  territory, 
and  this  also  Buchanan  declined. 

The  negotiations  were  next  transferred  to  London.  Buchanan 
wrote  on  February  26  to  McLane,  the  American  minister  there, 
that,  judging  from  the  speeches  and  proceedings  in  the  Senate, 
a  proposition  to  fix  the  boundary  on  the  forty-ninth  parallel 
would  probably  be  favorably  received.  This  was  somewhat  sur 
prising,  seeing  that  the  majority  of  senators  had  emphatically 
expressed  their  adherence  to  the  "Fifty-four  forty"  demand. 
Nevertheless,  McLane  acted  upon  the  hint,  and  on  May  18  he 
wrote  that  he  had  had  a  full  and  free  conversation  with  the 
British  foreign  minister,  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen,  as  a  result  of 
which  the  British  government  would  send  by  the  next  steamer 
"a  new  and  further  proposition  for  a  partition  of  the  territory 
in  dispute."  Meantime,  after  prolonged  debate,  both  Houses 
of  Congress  passed  by  large  majorities  a  resolution  authorizing 
the  President  to  give  notice  of  the  abrogation  of  the  treaty  of 
1827,  in  order  that  the  attention  of  the  two  Governments  might 
be  "the  more  earnestly  directed  to  the  adoption  of  all  proper 
measures  for  a  speedy  and  amicable  adjustment"  of  their  dif 
ferences  and  disputes.  The  notice  was  given  through  McLane 
to  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen  on  May  22. 

The  proposition  from  the  British  government,  the  coming 
of  which  McLane  had  announced  in  advance,  reached  Washing 
ton  on  June  6,  and  was  presented  by  Pakenham  to  Buchanan. 
It  proved  to  be  a  complete  draft  of  a  treaty,  which  provided  for 
the  adoption  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  the  boundary  as  far 
as  the  sea,  that  is  to  say,  that  great  arm  of  the  sea  known  as 
Birch's  Bay;  thence  it  was  to  run  down  the  Canal  de  Haro 
and  the  Strait  of  San  Juan  de  Fuca  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This 
gave  all  of  Vancouver's  Island  to  Great  Britain;  but  it  was 
stipulated  that  the  United  States  should  have  the  right  of  free 
navigation  of  the  strait  and  canal  named — a  superfluity,  since 
the  United  States  would  have  had  that  right  in  any  event,  by 


OREGON  425 

virtue  of  its  ownership  of  one  shore  of  those  waters.  All  British 
subjects  in  all  parts  of  Oregon  were  to  be  confirmed  in  owner 
ship  of  the  lands  which  they  were  actually  occupying,  and  the 
Hudson  Bay  Company  was  to  have  the  right  to  navigate  the 
Columbia  River.  This  was  obviously  a  marked  withdrawal  from 
the  former  claims  of  Great  Britain,  as  also  from  those  of  the 
United  States.  It  was,  however,  a  reasonably  equitable  com 
promise  between  them. 

Polk  was  favorably  impressed  by  it.  But  he  remembered 
the  extreme  demands  of  his  campaign,  his  inaugural,  and  his 
message,  and  he  was  in  doubt  as  to  the  reception  which  the 
Senate  would  give  to  so  sweeping  an  abandonment  of  them. 
One  senator,  Hannegan,  of  Indiana,  had  declared  that  if  Polk 
were  willing  to  compromise  on  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  or  to 
recede  at  all  from  "Fifty-four  forty,"  then  he  had  "spoken 
words  of  falsehood,  and  with  the  tongue  of  a  serpent";  and 
many  of  his  colleagues,  particularly  from  the  "West,  agreed  with 
that  sentiment.  Before  authorizing  the  secretary  of  state  to  sign 
the  treaty,  therefore,  Polk  took  the  unprecedented  and  unique 
step  of  submitting  it  to  the  Senate  in  advance  and  asking  that 
body  whether  it  would  ratify  it  if  the  secretary  should  sign  it! 
That  extraordinary  procedure  was  described  by  Daniel  Webster 
as  follows:  "In  the  general  operation  of  government  treaties 
are  negotiated  by  the  President  and  ratified  by  the  Senate;  but 
here  is  the  reverse — here  is  a  treaty  negotiated  by  the  Senate  and 
only  agreed  to  by  the  President."  The  Senate,  however,  acqui 
esced  in  this  course.  After  three  days'  deliberation  it  approved 
the  treaty,  by  a  vote  of  thirty-seven  to  twelve,  and  on  June  15 
the  document  was  signed,  precisely  as  it  had  been  drafted  by 
the  British  government,  without  the  change  of  a  single  word 
or  letter.  After  its  signature  it  was  again  submitted  to  the 
Senate  and  was  ratified  by  a  vote  of  forty-one  to  fourteen. 

It  was  recognized  by  Buchanan  at  the  time  of  the  making  of 
the  treaty  that  there  was  left  some  uncertainty  as  to  the  rights 
of  navigation  of  the  Strait  of  San  Juan  de  Fuca  north  of  the 
forty-ninth  parallel,  and  also  as  to  the  exact  course  of  the 
boundary  line  through  the  Canal  de  Haro,  and  in  the  latter  part 
of  1846  there  arose  a  dispute  as  to  the  right  of  the  British  to 
colonize  some  of  the  islands  lying  east  of  the  Canal  de  Haro, 


426  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

and  between  it  and  the  mainland.  Some  correspondence  on  the 
subject  passed  between  George  Bancroft,  the  American  minister 
in  London,  and  Lord  Palmerston,  and  it  was  continued  in  1848 
between  Buchanan  and  Crampton,  the  British  minister  at 
Washington.  These  negotiations  resulted  in  nothing,  however, 
and  as  settlers  were  then  flocking  into  the  territory  there  arose 
danger  of  awkward  complications.  The  northern  half  of  the 
American  share  of  the  Oregon  country  was  organized  into  the 
Territory  of  Washington,  and  in  1854  the  legislature  met  for 
its  first  session  and  undertook  to  incorporate  the  Island  of  San 
Juan  into  one  of  the  counties  of  that  territory.  The  next  year 
William  L.  Marcy,  who  had  become  secretary  of  state,  urged  the 
Governor  of  Washington  Territory  to  refrain  from  and  to  re 
strain  all  acts  which  might  provoke  a  conflict,  but  without 
waiving  any  of  the  rights  or  claims  of  this  country.  In  August, 

1856,  it  was  agreed  that  a  joint  commission,  consisting  of  a 
commissioner,  an  astronomer,  and  a  surveyor  from  each  country, 
should  be  appointed  to  determine  the  boundary.     These  com 
missioners  held  a  number  of  meetings,  from  June  to  December, 

1857,  which  ended  in  hopeless  disagreement.     The  Americans 
insisted  that  the  line  should  pass  through  the  Canal  de  Haro, 
immediately  adjacent  to  Vancouver's  Island,  thus  giving  to  the 
United  States  the  archipelago  between  Vancouver's  Island  and 
the  mainland  at  Bellingham  Bay.     The  British  on  the  other 
hand  wanted  it  to  run  along  Rosario  Channel,  next  to  the  main 
land,  giving  the  islands  to  Great  Britain.    A  suggestion  was 
made  by  the  British  commissioner  of  a  line  through  San  Juan 
Channel,  giving  San  Juan  Island  to  Great  Britain  and  the  rest 
of  the  archipelago  to  the  United  States;  but  this  was  rejected 
by  the  American  commissioner. 

In  1859  there  was  danger  of  a  violent  clash,  when  Hudson 
Bay  Company  officers  on  San  Juan  Island  threatened  to  exercise 
jurisdiction  over  some  of  the  American  settlers  there.  The  re 
sult  was  the  prompt  occupation  of  the  island  by  American  mili 
tary  forces.  Diplomatic  negotiations  were  then  resumed,  be 
tween  Lewis  Cass,  the  American  secretary  of  state,  and  Lord 
Lyons,  the  British  minister  at  Washington,  and  in  December, 
1860,  the  latter  proposed  a  reference  of  the  dispute  to  arbitra 
tion  by  the  King  .of  the  Netherlands,  the  King  of  Sweden  and 


OREGON  427 

Norway,  or  the  President  of  Switzerland.  It  does  not  appear 
that  any  reply  was  made  to  this  proposal,  the  United  States 
being  then  on  the  verge  of  the  Civil  War,  nor  were  there  any 
further  negotiations  for  several  years.  But  in  1866,  the  Civil 
War  then  being  ended,  the  United  States  government  again 
turned  its  attention  to  the  matter,  chiefly  on  account  of  the 
conflict  between  its  own  civil  and  military  authorities,  each  of 
whom  claimed  sole  jurisdiction  over  San  Juan  Island.  The 
result  was  that  Reverdy  Johnson,  the  American  minister  to 
Great  Britain,  and  Lord  Clarendon  made,  on  January  14,  1869, 
a  convention  for  submitting  the  boundary  question  to  the  ar 
bitration  of  the  Swiss  president.  But  the  United  States  Senate 
declined  to  take  any  action  upon  this  treaty,  and  it  lapsed  for 
lack  of  ratification.  When  the  Joint  High  Commission  of  1871 
met  at  Washington  the  matter  was  again  taken  up  and  the 
British  commissioners  proposed  arbitration  on  the  basis  of  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  agreement.  The  Americans  declined  this, 
but  suggested  that  the  Joint  High  Commission  itself  might  effect 
a  settlement.  To  this  the  British  assented,  and  a  general  dis 
cussion  of  the  conflicting  claims  ensued.  After  some  weeks, 
however,  they  were  no  nearer  agreement  than  at  the  beginning, 
and  then,  on  April  22,  1871,  it  was  decided  to  submit  the  mat 
ter  to  the  arbitration  of  the  German  emperor.  The  question  to 
be  submitted  to  him  was  whether  the  boundary  should  pass 
through  the  Canal  de  Haro  or  Rosario  Strait,  and  his  decision 
was  to  be  final,  without  appeal. 

The  case  was  presented  for  the  United  States  by  the  venerable 
George  Bancroft,  then  minister  at  Berlin,  who  had  been  a  mem 
ber  of  Folk's  cabinet  at  the  time  of  the  making  of  the  Oregon 
treaty;  and  it  was  presented  for  Great  Britain  by  Admiral 
Prevost,  who  in  1856  was  a  British  commissioner  for  the  de 
marcation  of  the  boundary.  Neither  government  could  have 
selected  a  man  more  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  dispute 
or  more  competent  to  present  its  various  phases  to  the  dis 
tinguished  arbitrator.  The  arbitral  process  was  begun  on  July 
29,  1871,  when  the  emperor  was  formally  requested,  through  his 
chancellor,  Prince  Bismarck,  to  act  as  umpire.  Acceptance  was 
expressed  on  September  1.  The  American  argument  was  de 
livered,  in  writing,  on  December  12,  and  the  British  on  Decem- 


428  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

her  15.  The  second  and  final  statement  was  made  by  Great 
Britain  on  June  10,  and  by  the  United  States  on  July  11,  1872. 
The  emperor  summoned  to  his  assistance  three  eminent  experts : 
Dr.  Grimm,  vice-president  of  the  Supreme  Court  at  Berlin; 
Dr.  Goldschmidt,  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Commercial  Court 
at  Leipsic;  and  Dr.  Kiepert,  a  pupil  of  Karl  Ritter,  the  great 
geographer;  each  of  whom  made  an  individual  report.  The 
result  was  that  on  October  21,  1872,  the  emperor  gave  his 
award,  to  the  effect  that  the  claim  of  the  United  States,  that  the 
boundary  should  be  drawn  through  the  Canal  de  Haro,  was 
"most  in  accordance  with  the  true  interpretations"  of  the  treaty 
of  1846. 

Admiral  Prevost  was  greatly  disappointed  at  this,  as  he  had 
confidently  expected  a  verdict  in  his  favor.  The  British  govern 
ment  itself  was  sharply  criticized  in  the  House  of  Commons  for 
having  let  the  arbitration  be  limited  to  a  choice  between  those 
two  channels,  instead  of  leaving  it  open  for  the  arbitrator  to 
select  some  intermediate  line  as  a  compromise.  There  was,  how 
ever,  no  substantial  ground  for  supposing  that  the  emperor 
would  have  chosen  any  other  line.  An  intimation  was  made  that 
he  was  biased  in  favor  of  America,  or  at  least  against  Great 
Britain,  because  of  English  friendliness  toward  France  during 
the  Franco-German  War  of  the  preceding  year,  but  this  was 
probably  quite  unfounded.  The  award  was  impartially  made, 
on  the  merits  of  the  case,  and  it  was  instantly  and  loyally  ac 
cepted  on  both  sides.  Immediately  upon  receiving  a  copy  of  it 
the  British  government  withdrew  from  San  Juan  Island  the 
company  of  marines  which  it  had  stationed  there,  and  a  little 
later  quadruplicate  charts,  with  the  boundary  marked,  were 
signed  at  Washington  by  Hamilton  Fish,  secretary  of  state,  and 
by  Admiral  Prevost  and  Sir  Edward  Thornton,  the  British 
minister,  together  with  a  protocol  defining  the  line.  In  his 
annual  message  on  December  2  following,  President  Grant  re 
ported  this  achievement,  and  declared  that  it  left  us,  "for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  United  States  as  a  nation,  without 
a  question  of  disputed  boundary  between  our  territory  and  the 
possessions  of  Great  Britain  on  this  continent. ' '  In  after  years 
another  dispute  did  arise,  which  was  not  then  foreseen,  but  at  the 
time  that  statement  of  Grant's  was  quite  true. 


OREGON  429 

Meantime  some  other  issues  arose  in  connection  with  Oregon. 
When  all  the  mainland  south  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  was 
conceded  to  the  United  States  by  the  treaty  of  1846,  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  had  thirteen  forts  and  other  establishments 
therein,  and  the  Puget  Sound  Agricultural  Company  had  two 
farm  establishments.  The  treaty  provided  that  the  property 
rights  of  these  corporations  should  be  respected,  and  that  naviga 
tion  of  the  Columbia  River  should  be  open  to  the  British;  but 
that  if  the  United  States  government  should  at  any  time  desire 
to  take  these  lands,  it  might  do  so  at  a  mutually  agreed  valua 
tion.  Both  companies  soon  began  to  complain  of  the  encroach 
ments  of  American  settlers  and  of  the  failure  of  the  United 
States  to  give  them  due  protection,  and  they  offered  to  sell  out 
all  their  holdings  to  this  country.  Negotiations  were  conducted 
for  several  years,  from  1848  to  1850,  without  result,  but  in  1863 
W.  H.  Seward,  the  American  secretary  of  state,  and  Lord  Lyons, 
the  British  minister  at  Washington,  made  a  treaty  for  the  pur 
chase  of  the  property  and  rights  of  the  two  companies  by  the 
United  States.  Alexander  S.  Johnson  of  New  York  and  Sir  John 
Rose  of  Canada  were  appointed  commissioners,  and  Caleb 
Gushing  was  chosen  as  counsel  for  the  United  States  and  Charles 
Dewey  Day  for  the  British  companies.  Benjamin  R.  Curtis  of 
the  United  States  was  selected  by  the  commissioners  as  umpire. 
The  case  lasted  from  January  9,  1865,  to  July  11,  1869,  when 
the  commissioners  made  a  final  award.  Under  this  the  United 
States  was  to  pay  to  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  on  account 
of  its  possessory  rights  and  claims  the  sum  of  $450,000,  and 
similarly  to  the  Puget  Sound  Agricultural  Company  $200,000. 
The  award  was  accepted  and  fulfilled.  An  attempt  was  made 
by  Pierce  County,  Washington  Territory,  to  have  a  considerable 
sum  withheld  from  the  Puget  Sound  Agricultural  Company, 
on  account  of  local  taxes  which  the  company  was  said  to  be 
owing,  but  the  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  held  that 
this  could  not  be  done;  for  since  the  award  provided  that  the 
sums  named  should  be  paid  ' '  without  any  deduction  whatever, ' ' 
any  such  withholding  would  be  a  breach  of  treaty.  The  pur 
chase  sums  were  therefore  paid  in  full,  and  the  two  companies 
deeded  all  their  possessory  rights  and  claims  to  the  United 
States. 


XVI 

ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS 

THE  Panama  Congress,  which  the  United  States  treated 
so  shabbily  in  1825-26,  was  intended  to  discuss  and  to  pro 
mote,  among  other  topics,  the  project  of  an  interoceanic  canal 
across  the  Central  American  Isthmus  at  some  one  of  the  various 
points  which  had  been  under  consideration  since  the  days  of 
Hernando  Cortez,  three  centuries  before.  This  intention  was 
brought  to  the  notice  of  the  American  government,  and  the 
secretary  of  state,  Clay,  replied  to  the  envoys  that  the  question 
of  such  a  canal  might  properly  be  discussed  at  the  Congress, 
and  that  the  canal  itself,  if  it  should  be  constructed,  would  con 
fer  its  greatest  benefits  upon  the  American  continents,  and 
would  be  of  interest  to  the  entire  world.  At  about  that  same 
time  Jose  Canaz,  the  first  Central  American  envoy  to  the  United 
States,  also  broached  the  subject.  In  a  written  communication 
he  invited  the  United  States  to  join  Central  America  in  the  en 
terprise  of  constructing  a  canal,  and  to  share,  also,  in  the  special 
benefits  which  the  work  would  confer;  to  that  end  suggesting 
a  treaty  between  the  two  nations  which  would  perpetually  secure 
the  canal  as  their  joint  possession.  There  was  an  insuperable 
objection  to  entering  into  such  an  alliance.  But  Clay  was  at 
least  sympathetic  toward  the  project,  and  assured  Canaz  of  "the 
deep  interest  taken  by  the  Government  of  the  United  States  in 
an  undertaking  so  highly  calculated  to  diffuse  an  extensive 
influence  on  the  affairs  of  mankind."  He  also  instructed 
Williams,  the  United  States  minister  to  Central  America,  to 
investigate  the  matter  carefully  and  to  report  all  obtainable 
data  concerning  the  practicability  of  constructing  a  canal  at 
Nicaragua.  The  Central  American  government,  disappointed  in 
its  hope  of  making  an  alliance  with  the  United  States  and  of 
having  this  country  for  a  partner  in  the  canal  enterprise,  or 
dered  on  its  own  account  the  construction  of  a  canal  at 
Nicaragua,  and  gave  a  concession  for  the  work  to  one  Beniski. 

430 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  431 

This  concession  was  presently  transferred  to  an  American  con 
cern  known  as  the  Central  American  and  United  States  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  Canal  Company,  of  which  De  Witt  Clinton  and 
other  prominent  men  were  members.  Another  company  was 
organized  just  after  the  Congress  of  Panama  by  General  Wer- 
weer  of  Belgium.  He  secured  from  Nicaragua  a  concession  for 
the  canal  and  a  monopoly  of  the  coasting  trade,  for  the  King 
of  Holland.  This  was  regarded  in  the  United  States  as  in 
compatible  with  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  the  scheme  was  in 
consequence  eventually  abandoned. 

The  United  States  Senate  in  1835  resumed  consideration  of 
the  project,  and  adopted  a  resolution  in  favor  of  constructing 
a  canal  at  Nicaragua.  President  Jackson  sent  Charles  Biddle 
thither  to  make  surveys  and  to  negotiate  a  treaty.  But  Biddle 
went  to  Panama  instead,  and  there  secured  a  concession  which 
had  originally  been  granted  by  Bolivar  to  Baron  Thierry,  an 
adventurer  who  had  got  the  Maoris  to  elect  him  "King  of  New 
Zealand. "  At  this  the  United  States  government  repudiated 
Biddle  and  all  that  he  had  done.  In  1837  and  1838  prominent 
citizens  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  besought  Congress  to  in 
vite  the  Central  American  States  and  all  the  great  powers  of 
Europe  to  join  the  United  States  in  constructing  a  canal.  All 
that  came  of  this  was  the  adoption  by  Congress  of  a  resolution 
expressing  interest  in  the  scheme.  In  1839,  however,  John  L. 
Stephens  was  officially  commissioned  to  proceed  to  Nicaragua 
and  to  do  the  work  which  Biddle  a  few  years  before  had  failed 
to  do.  He  went,  surveyed  the  route,  and  reported  the  prac 
ticability  of  constructing  a  canal  at  Nicaragua,  for  $25,000,000 ; 
but  added  that  the  country  was  in  so  unsettled  and  revolutionary 
a  state  that  the  investment  of  capital  there  would  be  hazardous. 

The  next  important  step  was  taken  some  years  later.  The 
United  States  had  annexed  Texas,  was  colonizing  Oregon,  and 
was  conquering  Mexico  and  despoiling  her  by  the  seizure  of 
California.  Marcus  Whitman  had  proved  the  feasibility  of 
traveling  the  Oregon  Trail,  and  John  Charles  Fremont  had 
marked  the  pathways  of  the  Eocky  Mountains.  But  those 
routes  across  the  continent  were  long,  arduous,  and  beset  with 
perils.  The  sea  route,  even  around  Cape  Horn  or  through  the 
Strait  of  Magellan,  was  preferable.  Better  still  was  the  route 


432  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

by  way  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  though  it  did  involve  an 
overland  carry  of  fifty  miles  and  transshipment.  Best  of  all 
possible  routes,  at  least  until  a  transcontinental  railroad  could 
be  built,  would  be  that  through  an  isthmian  canal.  Now  at  this 
time  Great  Britain  was  dominating  Nicaragua,  and  had  actually 
seized  the  proposed  canal  route  there,  under  some  trumped  up 
and  spurious  claims,  and  the  United  States,  involved  in  a  war 
with  Mexico  and  hoping  for  a  peaceful  compromise  in  Oregon, 
had  had  no  mind  just  then  to  challenge  her,  even  for  the  sake 
of  vindicating  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Instead,  it  turned  to  other 
routes  of  transit  across  the  isthmus.  First  it  sought  Tehuante- 
pec,  in  Southern  Mexico.  This  was  the  nearest  to  the  United 
States  of  all  possible  routes.  It  had  been  carefully  surveyed 
by  Mexico,  and  had  been  found  practicable  for  a  railroad  or  for 
a  canal  with  locks.  It  was  on  Mexican  soil,  but  we  were  con 
quering  Mexico  and  might  make  a  transit  concession  a  part  of 
the  terms  of  peace.  So  President  Polk  instructed  Trist,  his  com 
missioner  for  peace  with  Mexico,  to  offer  to  double  the  indem 
nity  of  $15,000,000  which  we  were  about  to  pay  for  the  seizure 
of  California  and  New  Mexico,  if  Mexico  would  grant  us  the 
exclusive  right  of  way  across  that  isthmus.  This  offer  was  re 
fused,  but  American  capitalists  presently  bought  a  concession 
which  Mexico  had  formerly  granted  to  a  Mexican  promoter  for 
a  railroad  there,  and  so  got  the  right  of  way,  after  all,  without 
government  aid.  The  American  company  began  preparations 
for  building  a  railroad  across  the  Tehuantepec  Isthmus,  but  it 
was  so  hampered  by  obstacles  thrown  in  the  way  by  the  Mexican 
government  that  it  finally  abandoned  the  scheme. 

Meantime  other  Americans  had  turned  to  that  Panama  route 
which  the  United  States  had  repeatedly  scorned.  That  isthmus 
was  then  the  property  of  New  Granada,  now  Colombia,  and  that 
republic  was  in  a  parlous  state.  A  dozen  years  of  domestic 
strife  had  reduced  it  to  little  better  than  a  ruin,  and  both  the 
contending  factions  were  glad  to  accept  overtures  from  the 
United  States  for  an  enterprise  which  would  restore  prosperity 
and  for  a  treaty  which  would  protect  them  from  external  foes. 
Negotiations  were  easily  begun  and  were  swiftly  pushed,  and  a 
treaty  was  made,  ratified,  and  put  into  effect  on  June  10,  1848, 
which  marked  something  like  a  new  era  in  our  relations  with 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  433 

that  part  of  the  world.  This  treaty  gave  to  the  United  States 
a  full  and  exclusive  right  of  transit,  by  railroad,  canal,  or  other 
wise,  across  that  part  of  the  American  Isthmus  which  lay  within 
New  Granadan  territory,  to  wit,  the  Chiriqui,  Panama,  San  Bias, 
Caledonian  Bay,  Mandingo,  Atrato,  and  other  proposed  canal 
routes.  An  American  company  promptly  constructed  a  rail 
road  across  the  isthmus  at  Panama,  and  that  forthwith  became 
the  chief  route  of  interoceanic  transit.  A  canal  route  was  also 
surveyed,  but  no  other  work  was  done  on  it  at  that  time. 

In  return  for  this  concession,  the  United  States  formally 
recognized  New  Granada's  rights  of  sovereignty  over  the  Pan 
ama  Isthmus,  and  undertook  "positively  and  efficaciously"  to 
guarantee  that  country's  possession  of  it  against  any  and  all 
attacks  from  whatever  source;  and  also  to  make  absolutely 
neutral  all  routes  of  transit  across  that  territory.  In  brief, 
the  United  States  established  a  protectorate  over  New  Granada, 
so  far  as  the  isthmus  was  concerned.  It  guaranteed  the  inde 
pendence  and  integrity  of  that  foreign  country.  It  was  the  most 
advanced  step  in  that  direction  that  the  United  States  had 
ever  taken,  if  indeed  it  has  ever  since  exceeded  it,  and  it  was  a 
development  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  which  might  well  have 
aroused  the  attention  of  the  world,  and  might  have  provoked 
some  challenge  had  there  been  any  nation  in  a  position  to  chal 
lenge  it.  But  all  the  nations  of  the  European  continent  were 
involved  in  revolutionary  movenients  at  that  time,  and  Great 
Britain  was  too  intent  on  breaking  down  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
in  Nicaragua  to  care  much  how  greatly  it  was  exploited  at 
Panama.  So  the  treaty  stood  unchallenged,  destined  to  have 
a  profound  effect  in  after  years. 

No  sooner  had  this  been  done,  than  we  turned  again  to 
Nicaragua.  That  country  had  begun  to  resent  the  aggressions 
of  Great  Britain  and  was  desirous  of  escaping  from  the  terms 
of  a  treaty  which  that  power  had  extorted  from  it.  Moreover, 
the  natural  waterway  which  the  San  Juan  River  and  Lake 
Nicaragua  afforded  for  the  greater  part  of  the  distance  across 
the  isthmus  made  that  region  particularly  attractive  to  enter 
prising  capitalists.  An  American  company,  therefore,  in  1849, 
sought  a  contract  with  the  Nicaraguan  government  for  the  con 
struction  of  a  canal,  and  that  Government,  in  direct  defiance  of 

VOL.  I — 28 


434  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

its  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  made  the  desired  bargain.  The 
American  promoters  essayed  to  begin  work,  but  found  the 
British  in  possession  of  the  San  Juan  River,  an  essential  part  of 
the  route.  That  fact  was  reported  in  the  United  States,  and, 
as  the  Nicaraguans  had  shrewdly  calculated,  a  vigorous  anti- 
British  storm  of  popular  sentiment  arose.  President  Polk  there 
upon  hastily  despatched  Elijah  Hise  to  the  scene,  advising  him  in 
vigorous  terms  as  follows:  ''The  object  of  Great  Britain  in  this 
seizure  is  evident  from  the  policy  which  she  has  uniformly  pur 
sued  throughout  her  history,  of  seizing  upon  every  available 
commercial  point  in  the  world  whenever  circumstances  have 
placed  it  in  her  power;  and  now  it  seems  her  evident  purpose, 
by  assuming  the  title  of  protector  over  a  miserable,  degraded, 
and  insignificant  tribe  of  Indians,  to  acquire  an  absolute 
dominion  over  the  vast  extent  of  sea  coast  in  Nicaragua,  and  to 
obtain  control  of  the  route  for  a  railroad  and  canal  between 
the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans."  The  scandal  of  the  British 
assumption  of  a  protectorate  over  the  Moscoes  or  Mosquito  In 
dians  was  indeed  flagrant,  and  was  not  undeserving  of  Polk's 
characterization.  Yet  no  explicit  instructions  were  given  to 
Hise  as  to  his  course  of  procedure,  excepting  that  he  was  not 
to  make  any  treaty  with  Nicaragua,  for  the  reason  that  the 
United  States,  as  Buchanan  told  him,  had  not  yet  determined 
what  course  it  would  pursue  in  regard  to  the  British  encroach 
ments.  He  was  simply  reminded  that  *  *  the  United  States  would 
not  look  with  indifference  on  encroachments  of  European  powers 
in  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  American  republics." 

Hise,  however,  was  possessed  of  enough  of  the  spirit  of  some 
former  and  greater  diplomats  not  to  be  fettered  by  timorous  or 
ill-formed  instructions.  On  reaching  Nicaragua  he  quickly  per 
ceived  the  real  state  of  affairs,  and  his  patriotic  zeal  arose  to 
a  high  pitch.  To  his  mind  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  pur 
pose  of  the  treaty  which  had  just  been  made  with  New  Granada 
greatly  transcended  the  instructions  which  he  had  received.  He 
therefore  hastened  from  the  San  Juan  coast  up  to  the  capital  and 
requested  the  Nicaraguan  government  to  designate  a  commis 
sioner  to  negotiate  a  treaty.  The  Government  was  eager  to  re 
spond  and  Beneventura  Silva  was  named  to  treat  with  him.  In 
a  short  time  they  prepared  and  on  June  21,  1849,  signed  a  com- 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  435 

prehensive  treaty,  which  granted  to  the  United  States  or  a  com 
pany  of  its  citizens  the  exclusive  right  to  construct  and  operate 
a  transit  route  across  Nicaragua,  and  to  take  without  cost  alty 
lands  needed  for  the  purpose.  Free  ports  were  to  be  established 
at  the  terminals,  but  the  United  States  was  to  construct  any 
fortifications  which  it  might  desire  along  the  route.  The  neu-, 
trality  of  the  canal  was  to  be  guaranteed  by  the  United  States. 
This  country  was,  moreover,  to  guarantee  Nicaragua 's  sovereignty 
over  all  the  territory  which  she  claimed,  from  sea  to  sea,  and 
was  forever  to  "protect  and  defend"  that  country  in  its  "sov 
ereign  rights  and  dominion  over  the  coasts,  ports,  lakes,  rivers, 
and  territory"  which  were  justly  within  its  jurisdiction. 

This  was  vigorous  diplomacy  with  a  vengeance.  In  general 
and  in  detail  this  treaty  traversed  and  defied  the  British  claims. 
The  recognition  of  Nicaraguan  sovereignty  over  the  Caribbean 
coast  was  a  flat  denial  of  the  British  protectorate  over  the  al 
leged  "Kingdom  of  Mosquitia,"  and  the  constitution  of  Grey- 
town  into  a  free  port  under  the  protection  of  American  fortifi- 
fications  was  blunt  notice  to  the  British  to  abandon  their 
occupation  of  that  town.  This  treaty  was  sent  home  to  Wash 
ington,  but  Polk  did  not  submit  it  to  the  Senate  and  it  was  never 
ratified.  Perhaps  that  was  well,  for  in  the  conditions  which 
then  prevailed  it  might  easily  have  led  to  war.  Its  terms  were 
made  public,  however,  and  commanded  universal  applause 
throughout  the  United  States.  Polk's  term  then  expired  and  he 
left  the  Presidency  without  having  to  explain  to  the  American 
people  his  negligence  in  permitting  flagrant  British  aggressions 
in  Nicaragua,  or  to  Great  Britain  the  meaning  of  Hise's  defiant 
and  pugnacious  diplomacy. 

Taylor  succeeded  Polk  as  President,  with  John  M.  Clayton  as 
his  secretary  of  state.  This  was  a  Whig  administration,  instead 
of  Democratic,  as  Polk's  had  been,  and  the  policy  of  the  Gov 
ernment  was  radically  changed.  Instead  of  continuing  the  ex 
pansionist  and  belligerent  views  which  Southern  statesmen  had 
indulged,  the  Northern  Whigs  now  looked  at  matters  with  calm, 
commercial  eyes.  The  isthmian  canal  scheme  was  to  them  a 
financial  rather  than  a  diplomatic  enterprise.  American  capi 
talists  were  eager  to  invest  their  money  in  what  they  believed 
would  be  a  profitable  undertaking,  provided  that  the  Govern- 


436  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ment  would  assure  them  protection.  English  capitalists  were 
also  ready  to  join  in  the  work,  and  indeed  their  funds  would 
probably  be  needed.  The  administration  saw,  therefore,  no  rea 
son  why  America  and  Great  Britain  should  not  be  partners  in 
the  enterprise.  Toward  such  a  consummation  the  first  step  was 
the  repudiation  of  Hise.  He  was  recalled  and  his  treaty  was  dis 
avowed.  In  his  place  E.  G.  Squier  was  sent  to  the  isthmus, 
with  instructions  from  Clayton  to  make  a  new  treaty  with 
Nicaragua  which  would  assure  4<  equal  right  of  transit  for  all 
nations  through  a  canal  which  should  be  hampered  by  no  re 
strictions,  either  from  the  local  government  or  from  the  com 
pany  which  should  undertake  the  work."  Above  all  things, 
he  was  "not  to  involve  this  country  in  any  entangling  alliances, 
or  any  unnecessary  controversy."  Meantime  the  American  Ca 
nal  Company  at  Nicaragua  had  been  reorganized  and  expanded, 
and  was  eager  to  begin  work  as  soon  as  a  satisfactory  concession 
could  be  secured. 

Squier  went  to  Nicaragua  promptly,  and  he,  too,  at  once  be 
came  possessed  of  the  same  spirit  that  had  animated  Hise,  though 
it  was  tempered  with  more  diplomatic  discretion.  He  vigorously 
resisted  and  condemned  the  extravagant  British  claims,  and 
promoted  the  interests  of  the  American  company  to  so  good  pur 
pose  that  on  September  23,  1849,  it  was  able  to  secure  the  favor 
able  concession  which  it  desired.  It  secured  the  right  to  con 
struct  a  canal  from  any  point  on  the  Caribbean  coast,  quite 
regardless  of  British  pretensions,  to  any  point  on  the  Pacific; 
to  have  a  monopoly  of  steam  navigation  on  all  Nicaraguan  lakes 
and  rivers;  and  to  take  land  for  canal  purposes  and  for  Amer 
ican  colonization.  Squier  also  made  a  treaty  with  the  Nica 
raguan  government,  in  which  the  company  was  assured  of  its 
right  of  way  from  sea  to  sea,  and  the  neutrality  of  the  canal 
was  guaranteed  and  Nicaragua's  rights  of  sovereignty  were  rec 
ognized  and  were  to  be  protected  by  the  United  States.  A  spe 
cial  clause  was  inserted,  offering  similar  rights  to  other  nations 
which  might  negotiate  similar  treaties  with  Nicaragua.  Thus  Mr. 
Squier  imagined  that  he  had  gained  substantially  the  same  end 
that  Hise  had  sought,  but  in  a  more  diplomatic  way  and  with 
out  binding  the  United  States  to  any  exclusive  control  of  the 
canal. 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  437 

At  this  time,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  the  British  had  actual 
possession  of  Greytown,  the  Caribbean  terminal  of  the  route, 
and  they  now,  while  Squier  was  at  work  in  Nicaragua,  began 
intrigues  for  gaining  possession  of  the  Pacific  terminal.  This 
was  in  the  Gulf  of  Fonseca,  upon  which  not  only  Nicaragua 
but  also  Honduras  and  Salvador  fronted.  Honduras  owned 
Tigre  and  other  islands  in  the  gulf,  which  dominated  any  possi 
ble  outlet  of  the  canal  in  those  waters.  On  the  basis  of  some 
old  claims  for  debts  or  damages  Great  Britain  probably  hoped 
to  seize  some  or  all  of  those  islands.  Getting  some  inkling  of 
this,  the  expeditious  and  intrepid  Squier,  without  waiting  for 
instructions,  rushed  up  into  Honduras  and  on  September  28, 
1849,  made  a  treaty  securing  land  on  Tigre  Island  and  on  other 
parts  of  the  shore  of  the  Gulf  of  Fonseca,  for  naval  stations 
and  fortifications.  A  protocol  was  added,  ceding  the  whole  of 
Tigre  Island  to  the  United  States  for  a  year  and  a  half,  pend 
ing  the  ratification  of  the  treaty.  The  British  response  to  this 
bold  defiance  came  quickly.  A  squadron  was  sent  to  the  Gulf 
of  Fonseca,  Tigre  Island  was  seized  in  alleged  satisfaction  of 
claims,  and  the  British  flag  was  raised  upon  it  in  token  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  crown.  This  was  on  October  16.  Squier  in 
stantly  notified  the  British  plenipotentiary,  Chatfield,  that  he 
had  illegally  seized  land  belonging  to  the  United  States,  and 
ordered  him  to  evacuate  it.  Chatfield  returned  a  flat  refusal. 
Squier  thereupon  told  him  that  if  he  did  not  evacuate  Tigre 
Island  in  six  days,  his  occupancy  would  thereafter  be  regarded 
and  dealt  with  as  an  act  of  unfriendly  and  violent  aggression. 
So  close  were  the  nations  to  war,  when  diplomacy  at  Washing 
ton  intervened  to  quiet  the  angry  passions  which  had  arisen  on 
the  isthmus. 

The  Taylor  administration  at  Washington  was  in  an  awkward 
predicament.  It  was  Whig  in  politics.  But  there  was  a  Demo 
cratic  majority  in  the  Senate.  Treaties  must  therefore  be  made 
with  foreign  countries  with  a  view  to  the  approval  of  the  op 
position.  If  the  administration  backed  down  too  far  from  the 
advanced  ground  taken  by  Hise,  whom  it  had  repudiated,  and 
by  Squier,  whom  it  had  commissioned  in  his  place,  it  would  incur 
the  reproach  of  cowardice  in  the  face  of  British  bullying.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  it  stood  its  ground  too  resolutely,  it  might 


438  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

incur  war  with  Great  Britain,  which  it  certainly  did  not  want 
to  do.  Clayton,  therefore,  sought  escape  from  the  dilemma  by 
negotiating  for  an  immediate  agreement  with  Great  Britain, 
under  which  the  two  nations  would  cooperate  in  the  construc 
tion  of  the  canal.  This  would,  he  hoped,  gratify  those  whose 
chief  aim  was  commercial  and  who  wanted  a  canal  on  almost 
any  terms;  and  he  hoped  that  this  sentiment  would  be  strong 
enough  to  overcome  the  opposition  which  pugnacious  and  ag 
gressive  senators  would  be  likely  to  offer.  Secrecy  and  expedi 
tion  were  essential  to  the  success  of  the  scheme.  He  therefore 
took  Crampton,  the  British  minister,  into  his  confidence,  ex 
plained  to  him  the  embarrassing  plight  in  which  the  adminis 
tration  found  itself,  and  asked  him  to  help  it  out  of  it  on  some 
terms  which  would  be  mutually  satisfactory.  He  suggested  that 
the  Hise  treaty  should  be  totally  abandoned;  that  Great  Britain 
should  so  modify  her  claim  to  the  Mosquito  coast  as  to  give 
the  canal  a  neutral  outlet;  and  that  treaties  should  be  made  by 
both  powers  with  Nicaragua  giving  exclusive  rights  to  neither. 
The  United  States,  he  declared,  "sought  no  exclusive  advantage, 
and  rather  wished  the  canal  to  be  a  bond  of  peace  between  the 
two  countries  than  a  subject  of  jealousy." 

Abbott  Lawrence  had  then  just  been  appointed  minister  to 
Great  Britain,  but  had  not  started  for  that  country,  and  as  all 
possible  haste  was  desirable,  Clayton  directed  William  C.  Rives, 
who  had  been  appointed  minister  to  France  and  who  was  set 
ting  out  thither  in  advance  of  Lawrence,  to  go  first  to  London 
and  lay  the  matter  before  Lord  Palmerston,  the  British  foreign 
minister.  Rives  did  so,  and  secured  from  Palmerston  a  most 
cordial  response,  to  the  effect  that  the  British  government  would 
regard  with  favor  any  plan  for  making  the  canal  a  common 
highway  for  all  nations.  This  was  not  at  all  surprising,  seeing 
that  the  United  States  was  practically  acquiescing  in  the  Brit 
ish  claims  to  the  Mosquito  coast — nearly  all  the  Caribbean  coast 
of  Nicaragua.  A  little  later  Lawrence  reached  London  and  took 
up  the  negotiations  which  Rives  had  begun,  but  proceeded  on 
slightly  different  lines.  He  reminded  Palmerston  that  although 
the  United  States  had  an  exclusive  treaty  with  New  Granada 
at  Panama,  yet  British  and  American  capitalists  were  jointly 
interested  and  working  in  the  construction  of  the  railroad  across 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  439 

that  isthmus.  Similarly,  they  should  cooperate  in  the  Nicaragua 
Canal.  He  further  suggested,  to  complete  the  parallel,  that 
Great  Britain  should  join  the  United  States  on  equal  terms  in 
the  treaty  guarantees  to  New  Granada,  just  as  the  two  nations 
should  unite  in  such  provisions  at  Nicaragua.  In  one  respect, 
however,  Lawrence  did  not  follow  the  plan  outlined  by  Clay 
ton.  He  was  not  willing  to  concede  the  British  title  to  the 
Mosquito  coast,  or  to  San  Juan  (Greytown),  which  was  to  be 
the  eastern  terminus  of  the  canal.  The  United  States  claimed 
no  land  at  Panama,  and  so  he  thought  that  Great  Britain  should 
renounce  her  claims  at  Nicaragua.  He  soon  found,  however, 
that  Palmerston  had  no  idea  of  doing  any  such  thing,  but  meant 
to  hold  on  to  all  that  Great  Britain  had  claimed.  This  was,  in 
deed,  the  crux  of  the  whole  case,  as  Lawrence  presently  per 
ceived.  Great  Britain  cared  far  more  for  the  seizure  and  pos 
session  of  the  Nicaraguan  coast  than  for  the  construction  of  the 
canal.  This  moved  Lawrence  to  look  carefully  into  the  ques 
tion  of  the  British  claims.  He  went  carefully  and  laboriously 
through  a  vast  mass  of  historical  documents  and  records,  with 
the  result  that  he  became  convinced,  as  he  wrote  home  to  Clay 
ton,  that  the  British  claim  of  a  protectorate  over  the  Mosquito 
coast  had  no  basis  in  history,  public  law,  or  justice. 

Clayton,  unfortunately,  was  too  intent  upon  pushing  his  own 
plan  through  to  give  due  weight  to  Lawrence's  findings  and 
recommendations.  To  enter  upon  diplomatic  discussion  of  the 
Mosquito  business  would  mean  delay  which  might  be  fatal  to  the 
canal  scheme.  So  he  directed  Lawrence  to  cut  the  matter  short 
by  asking  Palmerston  whether  the  British  government  "in 
tended  to  occupy  or  colonize  Nicaragua,  Costa  Rica,  the  Mosquito 
coast,  or  any  part  of  Central  America,"  and  also  "whether  Great 
Britain  would  unite  with  the  United  States  in  guaranteeing 
the  neutrality  of  a  ship  canal,  railway,  or  other  communication, 
to  be  open  to  the  world  and  common  to  all  nations."  Law 
rence  was  most  reluctant  to  abandon  the  Mosquito  controversy 
and  practically  to  concede  the  British  claims;  but  he  obeyed 
orders,  and  absolved  himself  of  all  further  responsibility  for 
what  he  considered  a  betrayal  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  of 
American  interests. 

Palmerston  promptly  answered  the  question  which  Clayton. 


440  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

through  Lawrence,  put  to  him.  Since  Clayton  acquiesced  in  the 
British  seizure  of  the  Mosquito  coast,  he  was  quite  willing  to 
say  that  Great  Britain  had  no  thought  of  further  occupation  or 
colonization.  Being  secure  in  the  possession  of  all  it  had 
grabbed,  that  country  was  quite  willing  to  cooperate  with  the 
United  States  in  the  construction  of  the  canal  and  in  the  main 
tenance  of  it  open  to  all  the  world  on  equal  terms.  Palmerston, 
however,  determined  if  possible  to  reinforce  the  British  posi 
tion  by  securing  from  the  American  government  not  merely  a 
tacit  but  a  categorical  recognition  of  the  Mosquito  protectorate. 
Accordingly  he  added  to  his  answers  to  Clayton's  questions  the 
statement  that  ''though  there  existed  a  close  political  connec 
tion  between  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain  and  the  State  and 
Territory  of  Mosquito,"  the  British  government  claimed  no  do 
minion  there;  and  he  promised  that  the  British  government 
11  would  freely  undertake  to  obtain  the  consent  of  Mosquito" 
to  arangements  which  would  make  that  territory  and  its  ports 
available  for  the  purposes  of  the  desired  canal.  Of  course,  if 
the  United  States  took  no  exception  to  this,  it  would  be  very  ex 
plicitly  acquiescing  in  the  British  pretensions  to  the  Mosquito 
protectorate. 

•  Clayton  fell  into  the  trap.  It  may  be  matter  of  speculation 
whether  or  not  he  fully  appreciated  the  purport  of  Palmer 
ston  's  words  and  the  significance  of  his  own  acquiescence  in 
them.  At  any  rate  he  took  no  exception  to  them,  but  on  the 
contrary  declared  himself  to  be  fully  satisfied  with  the  British 
reply  to  his  questions.  Lawrence  doubtless  saw  the  trick  and 
would  have  resisted  and  defeated  it  if  he  had  been  permitted 
to  do  so.  But  again  Palmerston  was  too  shrewd  for  the  Amer 
ican  state  department.  Instead  of  having  the  negotiations 
completed  at  London,  by  Lawrence  and  himself,  he  proposed  to 
compliment  Clayton  by  sending  a  special  envoy  to  negotiate  di 
rectly  with  him  at  Washington.  To  this  Clayton  agreed,  and 
a  particularly  astute  diplomat,  Sir  Henry  Bulwer,  was  sent  to 
Washington  expressly  to  negotiate  a  treaty  on  the  lines  already 
indicated.  Lawrence  felt  himself  rebuked  and  passed  over  be 
cause  of  his  too  zealous  regard  for  American  interests ;  but  could 
do  nothing  save  to  send  to  Clayton  the  voluminous  report  of 
his  researches  into,  the  British  claims  in  Mosquitia,  with  a  note 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  441 

of  transmittal  in  which  he  said,  with  truthful  prophecy,  that 
whenever  the  history  of  the  conduct  of  Great  Britain  should  be 
published  to  the  world,  it  would  not  stand  for  one  hour  before 
the  bar  of  public  opinion  without  universal  condemnation.  His 
report  was  laid  aside,  almost  unnoticed ;  but  in  after  years  it  was 
taken  up,  verified,  and  vindicated. 

Clayton  and  Bulwer  promptly  began  negotiations  for  a  treaty, 
and  from  the  first  the  former  was  overmatched  by  his  wily 
antagonist.  Bulwer  reported  to  Palmerston  that  American  inter 
est  in  the  Mosquito  business  was  solely  commercial,  and  arose 
merely  from  Nicaragua's  having  granted  the  canal  concession 
to  an  American  company.  America  and  Great  Britain  would 
certainly  never  agree  on  it  if  the  case  were  thoroughly  discussed, 
and  therefore  he  thought  it  best  to  avoid  discussing  it.  He 
would  give  all  his  attention  to  making  a  treaty  which  would 
give  to  American  commerce  all  it  desired  at  Nicaragua,  in  a 
manner  corresponding  with  the  dignity  and  honor  of  Great 
Britain  "and  the  disinterestedness  of  her  protectorate  over  the 
Mosquito  territory."  Hardly,  however,  had  negotiations  on 
these  lines  fairly  begun  when  news  reached  "Washington  of  the 
British  seizure  of  Tigre  Island  and  the  refusal  to  vacate  it  at 
the  demand  of  the  American  minister  who  had  made  a  treaty 
for  its  occupation  by  the  United  States.  The  Whigs  in  the  Sen 
ate,  supporting  "the  administration,  sought  to  minimize  the  im 
portance  of  this  incident;  but  the  Democrats,  in  the  majority, 
insisted  upon  exploiting  it,  and  upon  taking  up  at  once  for  con 
sideration  and  probable  ratification  the  treaty  which  Squier  had 
made  with  Nicaragua  and  which,  if  ratified,  would  preclude  any 
such  arrangements  as  those  which  Clayton  and  Bulwer  had  in 
view.  When  the  Squier  treaty  was  thus  taken  up,  the  senate 
committee  on  foreign  relations  asked  the  state  department  for  all 
the  correspondence,  reports,  etc.,  relating  to  it.  This  embar 
rassed  Clayton.  He  knew  that  the  examination  of  the  papers 
by  the  committee  would  mean  mischief  for  his  negotiations  with 
Bulwer,  if  indeed  it  did  not  mean  war  with  Great  Britain. 

Accordingly  he  declined,  or  delayed,  to  give  up  the  papers 
at  that  time,  on  the  pretext  that  the  matter  to  which  they  re 
lated  was  then  under  negotiation  with  the  British  minister. 
Then  he  hurried  to  Bulwer,  disclosed  to  him  his  predicament  and 


442  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

his  fears,  and  begged  him  to  waive  formalities  and  to  make  a 
treaty  at  once.  This  was  a  unique  performance,  the  American 
secretary  of  state  seeking  the  aid  of  a  foreign  envoy  against 
the  American  senate!  Bulwer  was  without  instructions  from 
Palmerston,  but  he  appreciated  his  opportunity,  acted  upon  his 
own  responsibility,  and  sought  to  do  as  Clayton  desired.  But 
the  Squier  treaty  was  out  of  Clayton's  reach  and  in  the  hands 
of  the  Senate.  Moreover,  Clayton  had  not  ventured  to  disclaim 
Squier 's  ultimatum  to  Chatfield  concerning  Tigre  Island.  Of 
course  the  British  government  had  not  disavowed  Chatfield 's 
seizures  of  that  island  and  his  defiance  of  the  United  States. 
But  Bulwer  shrewdly  suggested  that  such  a  disavowal  would 
be  made,  if  in  return  the  United  States  would  recognize  British 
rights  along  the  San  Juan  River  and  let  Great  Britain  have  a 
half  interest  in  the  canal. 

Clayton  accepted  this  suggestion  with  avidity.  He  assured 
Bulwer  that  the  Squier  treaty  would,  if  ratified,  first  be  so  modi 
fied  as  to  be  entirely  inoffensive  and  acceptable  to  Great  Britain, 
provided  the  latter  would  keep  the  Mosquito  Indians  from  inter 
fering  with  the  canal.  This  was  exactly  in  line  with  Bulwer 's 
own  scheme,  and  he  unhesitatingly  agreed  to  it.  He  disavowed 
Chatfield 's  seizure  of  Tigre  Island,  and  Clayton  disavowed 
Squier 's  ultimatum.  Then  they  set  to  work  to  draft  the  treaty 
which  has  ever  since  borne  their  names. 

When  the  first  rough  draft  was  made,  Bulwer  insisted  that 
it  must  be  sent  to  London,  for  Palmerston 's  approval.  The  de 
lay  was  agonizing  to  Clayton,  but  had  to  be  endured.  The  fact 
was  known  to  Clayton's  colleagues  in  the  cabinet  that  a  treaty 
was  being  negotiated,  though  its  proposed  terms  were  kept  se 
cret,  and  they  urged  him  to  insist,  as  a  prerequisite  to  any 
agreement  concerning  the  canal,  that  Great  Britain  should 
abandon  the  Mosquito  protectorate.  Clayton  replied  that  he 
had  attended  to  that  phase  of  the  situation  satisfactorily,  and 
it  soon  appeared  that  he  had  indeed  done  so,  but  it  was  to 
the  satisfaction  of  Great  Britain  rather  than  of  the  United 
States.  The  treaty  as  drafted  by  Bulwer  was  approved  by  Pal 
merston,  and  the  instrument  was  thereupon  completed  and 
signed,  on  April  19,  1850.  It  was  sent  to  the  Senate  for  rati 
fication,  and  was  rushed  through  that  body  with  little  debate 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  443 

or  consideration,  senators  accepting  the  assurance  that  Great 
Britain  had  forever  abandoned  her  policy  of  encroachment.  Of 
course  it  was  an  inspiring  idea  that  the  two  great  nations  were 
harmoniously  to  cooperate  in  the  doing  of  an  unprecedented 
work  for  the  commerce  of  the  world.  The  ratification  of  the 
treaty  was  therefore  hailed  with  much  enthusiasm,  and  Clayton 
won  for  a  time  much  popularity. 

The  treaty  provided  that  neither  of  the  two  countries  should 
ever  obtain  or  exercise  exclusive  control  over  the  proposed  canal, 
or  build  fortifications  along  its  route;  that  neither  should  ever 
take  possession  of  any  part  of  Central  America,  or  fortify  it, 
or  establish  colonies  there,  or  exert  any  dominion,  or  make  use 
of  any  alliance  or  protectorate  to  that  end;  that  they  should 
mutually  guard  the  neutrality  and  safety  of  the  canal,  and  in 
vite  other  nations  to  do  the  same ;  that  they  should  jointly  pro 
tect  and  support  any  satisfactory  company  in  the  construction 
of  the  canal;  and  that  the  same  general  principles  were  to  be 
extended  to  any  other  transit  route  across  the  isthmus,  at  Pan 
ama,  Tehuantepec,  or  elsewhere.  Unfortunately,  its  language 
in  places  was  so  vague  as  to  give  rise  to  much  uncertainty  and 
dispute  as  to  its  interpretation.  Clayton  appears  to  have 
thought  that  it  would  require  Great  Britain  to  renounce  her 
claims  upon  the  Mosquito  coast.  If  so,  he  was  soon  unde 
ceived.  Bulwer  wrote  him  a  note,  giving  the  British  interpre 
tation  of  the  treaty,  to  the  effect  that  it  did  not  apply  to  the 
British  settlement  at  Honduras,  or  Belize,  "or  its  dependen 
cies."  To  this  Clayton  agreed.  He  was  quite  willing  to  admit 
that  the  treaty  did  not  interfere  with  British  rights  in  Hon 
duras,  and  he  wrote  to  King,  the  chairman  of  the  foreign  rela 
tions  committee  of  the  Senate,  asking  him  to  confirm  that 
principle.  King  had  not  seen  the  text  of  Bulwer 's  note,  and 
he  accordingly  replied  that  "the  Senate  perfectly  understood 
that  the  treaty  did  not  include  British  Honduras."  He  cau 
tiously  added,  however,  that  Clayton  in  his  reply  to  Bulwer 
"should  be  careful  not  to  use  any  expression  which  would  seem 
to  recognize  the  right  of  England  to  any  portion  of  Honduras" 
— meaning  outside  of  British  Honduras,  or  Belize.  Clayton 
then  wrote  to  Bulwer  that  British  Honduras  was  exempted  from 
the  terms  of  the  treaty,  but  he  carefully  declined  either  to  af- 


444  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

firm  or  to  deny  the  British  title  to  that  settlement  or  its  al 
leged  dependencies.  The  treaty  was  thereupon  ratified,  and  the 
ratifications  were  exchanged,  and  it  was  promulgated  without 
being  understood.  Clayton  filed  away  in  the  archives  of  the 
state  department  the  note  from  Bulwer  and  his  reply  to  it,  and 
these  remained  unknown  to  the  Senate  and  to  the  President. 

A  few  weeks  later  President  Taylor  died  and  was  succeeded 
by  the  vice-president,  Millard  Fillmore,  and  Daniel  Webster  be 
came  secretary  of  state  in  Clayton's  place.  This  change  caused 
Bulwer  some  apprehension,  lest  the  Squier  treaty  should  be 
brought  forward  again,  and  he  accordingly  went  to  Webster 
and  reminded  him  of  Clayton's  promise  that,  in  return  for  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  certain  parts  of  the  Squier  treaty  should 
be  dropped.  Webster  felt  himself  bound  by  his  predecessor's 
promise,  and  accordingly  assured  Bulwer  that  no  further  ac 
tion  would  be  taken  in  that  matter.  Soon  afterward  Congress 
adjourned,  and  the  Squier  and  Hise  treaties  both  perished. 
The  canal  company  proceeded  with  its  surveys  under  joint  Brit 
ish  and.  American  patronage,  and  for  a  time  there  were  expecta 
tions  that  it  would  be  successful. 

Great  Britain,  however,  soon  demonstrated  in  a  practical  way 
her  interpretation  of  the  treaty,  as  not  at  all  interfering  with 
her  pretensions  and  designs  on  the  Mosquito  coast,  which  was 
what  Bulwer  had  shrewdly  referred  to  as  one  of  the  '  *  dependen 
cies  "  of  British  Honduras,  to  which  the  treaty  did  not  apply. 
A  British  warship  promptly  proceeded  to  San  Juan,  or  Grey- 
town,  and  landed  a  force  of  marines.  Chatfield  informed  the 
astonished  Nicaraguan  authorities  that  this  was  done  under  the 
terms  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  which  recognized  the  claims 
of  the  Mosquito  "King"  and  the  British  protectorate,  and  de 
nied  wholly  the  claims  of  Nicaragua.  He  added  that  the  Mos 
quito  "Kingdom"  extended  from  Honduras  to  the  San  Juan 
River,  and  he  advised  the  Nicaraguans  to  place  themselves  un 
der  the  patronage  of  Great  Britain,  as  able  to  do  far  more  for 
them  than  the  United  States.  A  little  later  an  American  vessel, 
the  Prometheus,  arrived  at  Greytown,  and  British  custom-house 
officers  tried  to  collect  from  her  some  port  dues.  The  captain 
refused  them,  an  English  man-of-war  fired  upon  the  ship,  and 
the  agent  of  the  canal  company  appealed  to  the  United  States 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  445 

government  for  protection  and  redress.  Webster  took  the  mat 
ter  up,  promptly  and  vigorously,  with  the  result  that  a  sharp 
issue  was  drawn  between  the  two  countries  over  the  interpreta 
tion  of  a  treaty  which  was  not  yet  a  year  old. 

Meanwhile,  having  done  all  the  mischief  he  could  in  Nica 
ragua,  Chatfield  went  to  Costa  Rica.  That  State  was  half  un 
friendly  to  Nicaragua  and  not  cordial  toward  the  United  States, 
and  therefore  it  lent  a  ready  ear  to  his  suggestions.  He  made 
a  treaty  of  amity  and  commerce,  which  was  harmless  enough 
in  its  terms,  but  which  encouraged  Costa  Rica  to  assume  an 
aggressive  attitude  toward  Nicaragua,  and  to  demand  of  the 
United  States  a  recognition  of  her  equal  share  with  Nicaragua 
in  the  canal  enterprise;  this  latter  claim  being  based  upon  the 
perfectly  plausible  ground  that  Costa  Rica  owned  half  of  the 
San  Juan  River.  There  thus  arose  a  quarrel  between  Nicaragua 
and  Costa  Riea,  in  which  Honduras  and  Salvador  joined  the 
former  and  Guatemala  the  latter.  Open  hostilities  did  not  oc 
cur,  but  Central  American  politics  and  diplomacy  fell  into  hope 
less  confusion. 

The  Government  at  Washington  was  much  concerned  over 
these  things,  but  gave  its  first  attention  to  settling  accounts  with 
Great  Britain.  Webster  plumply  demanded  a  distinct  disavowal 
of  the  attempt  to  collect  port  dues  from  the  Prometheus  and 
of  the  firing  upon  that  vessel.  Palmerston  had  now  been  suc 
ceeded  in  the  British  foreign  office  by  the  more  suave  and  sub 
tle  Granville,  and  the  latter  deemed  it  politic  to  yield  on  what 
was  after  all  a  minor  point.  So  he  replied  that  both  the  acts 
complained  of  had  been  committed  without  the  authority  of  the 
British  government.  This  was  accepted  as  satisfactory,  and 
Webster  then  took  up  with  Crampton,  who  had  resumed  his  du 
ties  as  British  minister  at  Washington  after  Bulwer's  departure, 
the  questions  which  had  been  raised  by  Costa  Rica.  As  a  re 
sult  of  their  negotiations,  a  basis  of  settlement  was  agreed  upon. 
Under  this,  a  reservation  of  territory  was  to  be  made  for  the 
Indians  on  the  Mosquito  Shore,  in  which  the  Indians  were  to 
enjoy  complete  autonomy,  and  for  three  years  Nicaragua  was 
to  pay  them  a  small  tribute.  The  municipal  government  of 
Greytown  was  to  be  surrendered  to  Nicaragua,  but  the  port, 
as  a  port  of  entry,  was  to  be  under  the  administration  of  the 


446  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

canal  company,  under  British  and  American  joint  protection. 
Costa  Rica  was  to  have  the  boundary  adjusted  in  accordance 
with  her  claims.  This  scheme  was  readily  accepted  by  Costa 
Rica,  but  Nicaragua  revolted  against  it.  She  considered  her 
self  betrayed  and  abandoned  by  the  United  States,  to  which  she 
had  confidently  looked  for  protection  under  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 
and  she  not  only  rejected  the  basis  of  settlement  but  issued  a 
formal  protest  against  any  further  meddling  in  her  domestic  af 
fairs  by  foreign  powers.  The  plan  devised  by  Webster  and 
Crampton  was  therefore  abandoned,  and  Great  Britain  was  left 
in  possession  of  practically  the  whole  coast  of  Nicaragua. 

The  controversy  was  then  shifted  to  Roatan  and  the  other 
Bay  Islands,  in  the  Bay  of  Honduras,  north  of  the  Mosquito 
coast.  These  had  been  seized  by  the  British  in  1841,  but  had 
since  been  so  neglected  that  it  was  not  clear  whether  Great 
Britain  still  claimed  them  or  not.  .  Americans  had  settled  there, 
and  one  of  them,  "William  Fitzgibbon,  had  been  elected  by  the 
Carib-Negro  inhabitants  to  be  their  chief.  Against  this  the  Eng 
lish  settlers  protested,  and  a  British  warship  was  sent  thither 
and  Fitzgibbon  was  deposed.  Then,  on  July  17,  1852,  a  for 
mal  proclamation  was  made  by  the  British  government,  that  the 
"Colony  of  the  Bay  Islands"  had  been  created,  with  a  governor 
and  assembly,  under  the  British  crown.  When  news  of  this 
reached  the  United  States  there  was  much  indignation,  and  on 
the  reopening  of  Congress  in  December,  1852,  a  vigorous  dis 
cussion  of  it  arose.  To  bring  the  matter  to  a  climax,  Clayton's 
acceptance  of  Bulwer's  adroit  reservation  concerning  the  treaty 
was  brought  to  light  and  was  laid  before  the  astounded  and 
embarrassed  Senate.  A  profound  sensation  was  created,  when 
senators  for  the  first  time  realized  what  they  had  done  in  rati 
fying  that  treaty.  Many  senators  rose  and  avowed  that  this  was 
the  first  they  had  known  of  Bulwer's  note  and  Clayton's  reply. 
Some  blamed  Clayton ;  others,  King.  But  all  these  protestations 
and  personal  recriminations  amounted  to  nothing  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  the  treaty  had  been  ratified  and  was  now  a  part 
of  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 

The  Senate  promptly  set  to  work  to  devise,  if  possible,  some 
way  out  of  the  predicament  into  which  it  had  fallen.  It  could 
not  deny  the  British  right  to  all  the  "dependencies"  of  British 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  447 

Honduras.  But  it  did  want  to  deny  that  right  to  the  Mosquito 
coast  and  the  Bay  Islands.  Therefore  it  must  prove,  if  pos 
sible,  that  those  regions  were  not  "dependencies"  of  British 
Honduras.  The  committee  on  foreign  relations  addressed  itself 
to  this  task,  with  all  the  ingenuity  at  its  command,  and  suc 
ceeded  in  framing  on  historical  grounds  a  pretty  good  case, 
convincing  at  least  to  itself,  and  thereupon  adopted  a  resolution 
declaring  that  the  establishment  of  a  British  colony  in  the  Bay 
Islands  and  British  control  of  the  Mosquito  coast  were  both 
in  violation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty.  But  this  had,  of 
course,  no  effect,  save  to  put  upon  the  state  department  and  its 
diplomats  the  task  of  persuading  Great  Britain  to  acquiesce 
in  it. 

It  was  now  the  early  part  of  1853.  Franklin  Pierce  was 
entering  upon  his  administration  as  President,  William  L.  Marcy 
was  secretary  of  state,  and  James  Buchanan  was  minister  to 
Great  Britain.  Solon  Borland  was  sent  to  Central  America, 
with  instructions  to  win  back  Nicaragua  to  friendship  with  this 
country  by  insisting  upon  respect  for  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty 
as  our  Senate's  resolution  had  just  interpreted  it,  namely,  as 
meaning  that  Great  Britain  was  to  recede  from  the  Mosquito 
shore,  to  renounce  her  protectorate  over  the  Indians  there,  and 
to  make  no  attempt  to  colonize  any  part  of  Central  America. 
On  reaching  Greytown  he  found  passions  running  high  between 
the  American  Canal  Company  and  the  British-Mosquito  author 
ities,  the  latter  having  demanded  certain  things  which  the  former 
refused  to  grant.  The  captain  of  one  of  the  company's  steam 
ers,  Smith  by  name,  killed  a  Mosquito  Negro  in  an  affray,  and 
took  refuge  from  arrest  in  the  house  of  the  American  consul, 
where  Borland  was  also  living.  The  house  was  attacked  by  a 
mob,  and  the  passengers  and  crew  of  the  Northern  Light,  an 
American  merchantman,  came  ashore  to  protect  it,  but  were 
fired  upon  and  driven  back;  taking  Borland  and  Smith  with 
them  to  the  vessel.  A  volunteer  guard  was  then  placed  over  the 
canal  company's  office,  and  the  Northern  Light,  with  Borland 
and  Smith  aboard,  hastened  back  to  the  United  States.  As  soon 
as  the  doings  at  Greytown  were  known  at  Washington,  the 
sloop  of  war  Cyane  was  sent  thither  to  protect  American  inter 
ests  and  to  demand  redress  for  the  deeds  of  the  mob.  Its  cap- 


448  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tain,  Hollins,  on  his  arrival  demanded  from  the  town  authorities 
indemnity  for  the  attack  upon  the  consulate.  This  was  refused. 
Then  he  went  to  the  commander  of  the  one  British  warship 
which  was  in  the  harbor  and  told  him  that  unless  the  satisfac 
tion  demanded  were  given  he  would  bombard  the  place.  The 
British  commander  protested  against  such  action,  but  did  noth 
ing  more.  Hollins  then,  after  giving  the  inhabitants  a  day's 
notice,  and  offering  them  all  safe  conveyance  to  the  adjacent 
American  settlement  of  Punta  Arenas,  bombarded  Greytown, 
and  afterward  landed  marines  to  burn  and  destroy  all  that  was 
left  of  the  place.  This  was  on  July  9,  1854.  The  Americans 
then  organized  a  provisional  government,  to  control  the  port. 

Meantime  Buchanan  went  to  London,  with  instructions  sim 
ilar  to  Borland's,  and  presented  the  American  view  of  the  Clay- 
ton-Bulwer  treaty  to  Lord  Clarendon.  The  United  States,  he 
said,  would  not  dispute  certain  British  rights  in  British  Hon 
duras  ;  but  it  would  insist  that  the  Mosquito  protectorate  should 
be  entirely  abandoned,  and  that  the  Bay  Islands  should  be  sur 
rendered  to  Honduras,  as  they  were  in  no  sense  "dependen 
cies"  of  Belize.  These  demands,  Buchanan  insisted,  were  justi 
fied  by  the  plain  meaning  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty.  To 
this  Clarendon  replied  at  great  length  and  with  much  detail  of 
historic  facts  and  circumstances.  The  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty, 
he  argued,  did  not  require  relinquishment  of  existing  possessions 
but  merely  forbade  further  acquisition  of  territory  in  Central 
America.  Therefore  it  did  not  call  for  British  abandonment  of 
the  Mosquito  protectorate ;  or  of  Belize,  which  the  United  States 
had  recognized  to  be  British  territory  by  sending  a  consul 
thither.  The  Bay  Islands,  he  insisted,  were  in  fact  depend 
encies  of  Belize.  In  conclusion,  he  declared  that  the  British 
government  would  not  recognize  the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  a  prin 
ciple  of  international  law,  and  would  engage  in  no  further  dis 
cussion  of  British  rights  in  Central  America. 

This  brought  matters  to  a  deadlock,  which  might  fittingly 
have  been  solved  by  abrogation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty, 
for  the  ample  cause  that  there  was  an  irreconcilable  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  its  essential  interpretation.  That  would  have 
been  an  honorable  and  amicable  course,  but  it  was  not  taken. 
If  indeed  the  United  States  had  simply  moved  in  that  direc- 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  449 

tion  it  is  not  improbable  that  Great  Britain  would  have  yielded 
and  would  have  agreed  to  an  interpretation  or  a  modification 
satisfactory  to  the  United  States.  For  Great  Britain  was  just 
then  entering  upon  the  conflict  with  Russia  which  culminated 
the  next  year  in  the  Crimean  War,  and  she  would  have  been 
most  reluctant  to  break  the  peace  with  the  United  States.  But 
if  the  treaty  was  to  be  abrogated  or  revised  the  initiative  would 
have  to  be  taken  by  this  country,  for  Great  Britain  was  quite 
content  to  stand  by  her  own  interpretation.  The  United 
States  did  not,  however,  take  such  initiative.  Instead,  many 
violent  anti-British  speeches  were  made  in  Congress,  and  much 
popular  ill-feeling  against  the  United  Kingdom  was  engendered. 
A  little  later  British  authorities  resorted  to  the  quite  unjusti 
fiable  practice  of  enlisting  recruits  in  the  United  States  for  the 
British  army  in  the  war  against  Russia.  Our  government  or 
dered  this  stopped,  and  both  powers  strengthened  their  fleets  in 
West  Indian  waters. 

The  United  States  did  much  worse  than  to  neglect  the  oppor 
tunity,  almost  the  duty,  to  abrogate  or  modify  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  treaty.  It  entered  upon,  or  at  least  openly  counte 
nanced,  a  course  of  aggression  in  the  West  Indies  and  Central 
America  which  belied  its  professions  and  was  little  short  of 
criminal.  The  slavery  question,  as  a  sectional  issue,  was  rap 
idly  becoming  acute,  and  the  pro-slavery  leaders  were  looking 
about  in  frantic  desperation  for  new  slave  territory  in  addition 
to  that  which  had  been  wrested  from  Mexico. 

Opportunely  for  them,  a  serious  domestic  conflict  arose  in 
Nicaragua  between  Conservatives  and  Liberals,  and  the  latter, 
being  the  pro- American  party,  called  upon  Americans  for  aid. 
Response  was  made  by  William  Walker,  a  Southerner,  who  had 
already  become  widely  known  as  the  leader  of  a  filibustering 
expedition  which  unsuccessfully  invaded  Lower  California. 
This  " gray-eyed  man  of  destiny,"  as  he  was  called,  hastened  to 
Nicaragua  in  June,  1855,  with  fifty-eight  other  American  ad 
venturers.  He  assumed  the  leadership  of  the  Liberal  forces, 
and  in  three  months  secured  possession  of  the  capital  and  con 
trol  of  most  of  the  country.  The  Conservative  government  was 
ousted  and  a  new  government  was  formed  in  its  place,  with 
Patricio  Rivas,  a  native,  as  president,  but  with  Walker  in  real 

VOL.  1—29 


450  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

control  as  commander  of  the  forces.  Then  one  Kinney,  an 
other  adventurer,  who  was  supposed  to  be  working  in  the  Brit 
ish  interest,  landed  on  the  Mosquito  coast  and  organized  a  force 
of  Indians  and  Negroes,  with  which  to  oppose  Walker.  On 
hearing  of  this,  Walker  hastened  thither  and  drove  him  out  of 
the  country.  This  victory  united  all  Americans  in  Nicaragua 
in  enthusiastic  support  of  Walker.  The  United  States  diplo 
matic  agent,  John  H.  Wheeler,  who  had  succeeded  Borland  at 
Greytown,  officially  recognized  the  Rivas-Walker  government, 
and  P.  H.  French,  one  of  Walker's  fellow-filibusters,  was  ap 
pointed  Nicaraguan  minister  to  the  United  States. 

This  put  the  President  in  an  awkward  dilemma.  If  he  recog 
nized  and  received  French,  he  would  be  countenancing  Walker 's 
scheme  for  annexing  Nicaragua  to  the  United  States  after  the 
fashion  of  Texas,  and  that  would  enrage  the  Free  State  party  in 
this  country  and  precipitate  the  sectional  conflict  which  was 
already  menacing.  On  the  other  hand  if  he  did  not  receive  him, 
he  would  be  accused  of  cowardice  and  betrayal  of  the  Amer 
ican  cause  on  the  isthmus  in  the  face  of  British  aggressions. 
He  finally  elected  to  temporize,  by  having  Marcy  politely  de 
cline  to  receive  French  until  he  could  be  assured  that  the  new 
government  in  Nicaragua,  which  the  latter  represented,  was 
accepted  by  the  people  of  that  country  and  was  likely  to  be 
stable  and  efficient.  This  was  obviously  the  correct  course  to 
pursue.  But  it  offended  and  infuriated  Walker.  That  fire-eat 
ing  Southerner  discerned  in  it,  he  thought,  the  influence  of 
Northern  anti-slavery  propagandists,  even  of  the  Northern  capi 
talists  of  the  canal  company.  In  consequence,  he  had  Rivas, 
who  was  his  facile  tool,  on  February  18,  1856,  issue  a  decree 
annulling  the  charter  of  that  company,  and  then  seize  all  the 
company's  property  for  debts.  The  officers  of  the  company 
called  upon  the  United  States  for  protection,  but  the  Government 
hesitated,  as  if  uncertain  what  to  do. 

At  this  juncture  a  strong  force  from  Costa  Rica  entered 
Nicaragua,  defeated  Walker,  and  seized  all  the  property  of  the 
canal  company.  It  was  suspected  that  this  was  done  at  Brit 
ish  incitement,  if  not  with  direct  British  aid,  and  this  suspicion 
was  vigorously  promoted  by  Walker's  partizans.  The  result 
was  that  another  outburst  of  anti-British  passion  occurred  in 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  451 

Congress  and  throughout  the  nation.  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
was  rehearsed,  the  abrogation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  was 
demanded — but  not  actually  undertaken — and  a  new  minister 
from  Nicaragua  in  French's  place,  Father  Augustin  Virgil,  was 
received  at  Washington.  Thinking  himself  thus  sure  of  the 
support  of  the  United  States,  Walker  then  threw  off  his  mask 
and  revealed  his  real  purpose.  He  deposed  his  puppet  Rivas, 
and  had  himself  declared  dictator  by  the  troops — ostensibly 
"elected  president"  by  those  parts  of  the  country  which  were 
under  army  control.  Then  he  issued  a  decree  annulling  the 
national  law  which  had  abolished  and  forever  prohibited  slavery 
in  Nicaragua.  But  in  his  expectations  of  material  support  from 
the  Southern  States  he  was  grievously  disappointed.  The 
crime  was  too  flagrant;  and  the  sectional  controversy  here  was 
too  grave  to  permit  any  such  campaign  for  more  slave  territory. 
The  United  States  abandoned  him  to  his  fate,  and  the  Nica- 
raguans  of  all  parties  united  against  him  and  called  upon  the 
neighboring  States  to  help  them  to  drive  from  the  land  this 
would-be  conqueror.  An  allied  army  of  all  the  Central  Amer 
ican  States  except  Costa  Rica  soon  defeated  Walker  and  be 
sieged  him  in  a  town  on  the  Pacific  coast.  Before  he  could  be 
captured,  however,  President  Pierce,  desperately  seeking  to  clear 
up  the  dreadful  mess  into  which  the  Government  was  getting 
in  its  Central  American  relations,  hurried  a  vessel  thither,  to 
the  commander  of  which  Walker  surrendered.  With  the  con 
sent  of  the  allies  the  filibuster  was  taken  to  New  Orleans  for 
trial.  This  left  Costa  Rica,  which  alone  had  taken  no  part  with 
the  other  allies  against  Walker,  in  possession  of  the  canal  route 
and  the  company's  property,  to  which  state  of  affairs  Nicaragua 
objected,  and  a  renewal  of  hostilities  was  imminent.  At  this 
Walker  forfeited  his  bail  in  New  Orleans,  and  returned  to 
Nicaragua  with  nearly  two  hundred  Southern  filibusters.  As 
soon  as  he  landed,  he  was  seized  by  Commodore  Paulding,  of  the 
United  States  navy,  and  the  whole  party  was  brought  back  to 
New  York. 

About  this  time,  in  1856,  the  Democratic  National  Convention 
met  at  Cincinnati  to  nominate  a  Presidential  candidate.  Pierce 
was  discarded,  partly  because  he  had  failed  to  support  the 
Nicaraguan  filibusters,  and  Buchanan  was  nominated  in  his 


452  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

place,  on  a  platform  which  strove  to  minimize  the  slavery  ques 
tion  at  home  by  exploiting  the  importance  of  foreign  affairs; 
declared  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  must  be  upheld,  the  isthmian 
transit  route  be  controlled  by  us,  and  our  ascendancy  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  be  assured;  and  expressed  sympathy  with 
Walker  and  his  fellow-filibusters  in  their  efforts  "to  regener 
ate  that  portion  of  the  continent."  Buchanan  of  course  ap 
proved  these  sentiments,  and  on  becoming  President  he  refused 
to  hold  Walker  and  the  others  as  prisoners,  and  actually  sent 
a  message  to  Congress  condemning  Commodore  Paulding  for 
arresting  them !  With  such  encouragement  Walker  made  a  tour 
of  the  South,  organized  a  third  band  of  filibusters  intent  on  the 
extension  of  slavery,  and  in  June,  1860,  returned  to  Central 
America.  He  landed  on  the  Bay  Island  of  Roatan,  still  in 
British  possession.  A  Honduran  force  hastened  against  him, 
and  he  was  captured  while  trying  to  get  into  Nicaragua.  The 
Honduran  authorities  tried  him  by  court  martial,  and  con 
demned  him  to  death;  and  he  was  shot  at  Truxillo  on  Septem 
ber  12,  1860. 

Meantime,  while  the  United  States  was  giving  its  attention 
to  these  follies  and  crimes,  British  diplomacy  was  active  and 
British  aggression  was  inexorable.  Great  Britain  had  held  its 
ground  in  both  Nicaragua  and  Honduras,  but  by  refraining  for 
a  time  from  further  advance  was  able  to  present  a  contrast  to  the 
United  States  and  its  filibusters;  so  that  both  Nicaragua  and 
Honduras  began  to  look  upon  that  country  rather  than  the 
United  States  as  their  friend.  Honduras  made  two  treaties  in 
1856,  under  which  the  Bay  Islands  were  to  be  made  "a  free 
territory,"  distinct  from  her  sovereignty,  and  concessions  were 
granted  for  a  British  railroad  line  across  Honduras  from  sea 
to  sea,  the  neutrality  of  which  was  to  be  guaranteed  by  Great 
Britain,  though  not  under  exclusive  British  control.  The 
British  protectorate  over  the  Mosquito  Indians  in  Honduras  was 
to  be  withdrawn,  but  the  Indians  were  to  have  an  independent 
reservation  of  their  own.  At  about  this  time  Buchanan  sent 
George  M.  Dallas  to  be  minister  to  Great  Britain,  and  a  treaty 
was  presently  negotiated  which  on  its  face  seemed  to  be  a  vic 
tory  for  America.  Great  Britain  was  to  abandon  her  protec 
torate  over  the  Mosquito  Indians  in  both  Honduras  and 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  453 

Nicaragua,  and  instead  of  it  was  to  make  arrangements  in 
their  behalf  which  would  be  satisfactory  to  the  United  States; 
the  limits  of  Belize  were  to  be  defined ;  and  the  Bay  Islands  were 
to  be  given  back  to  Honduras.  But — and  this  was  the  winning 
card  for  Great  Britain — all  this  was  to  be  conditioned  upon 
Honduras 's  ratification — and  our  acquiescence  in — the  two 
treaties  which  the  British  government  had  just  made  with  that 
country. 

Happily,  the  United  States  Senate  was  able  to  tell  a  hawk 
from  a  handsaw.  It  saw  through  this  shrewd  British  trick  and 
amended  the  treaty  which  Dallas  made  by  striking  out  that  con 
ditional  clause.  Then  the  British  government  declined  to  ac 
cept  it,  offering  instead  a  new  basis  of  settlement,  on  which 
the  Bay  Islands  would  be  recognized  as  a  part  of  Honduras  as 
soon  as  Honduras  would  make  a  treaty  accepting  the  cession  of 
them,  subject  to  certain  provisions  and  conditions  to  be  set  forth 
in  that  treaty.  This  was  practically  a  proposal  that  we  should 
sanction  in  advance  a  set  of  provisions  and  conditions  the  pur 
port  of  which  was  entirely  unknown.  Manifestly,  the  Senate 
could  not  agree  to  this,  and  Honduras,  too,  concluded  that  she 
could  not  ratify  the  treaties  which  she  had  made.  So  all  these 
negotiations  ended  in  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 

In  December,  1857,  in  his  annual  message  to  Congress, 
Buchanan  directly  suggested  the  abrogation  of  the  Clayton-Bul- 
wer  treaty,  in  a  temperate  manner.  "When  two  nations,"  he 
said,  "like  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  mutually  de 
sirous  as  they  are  of  maintaining  the  most  friendly  relations 
with  each  other,  have  unfortunately  concluded  a  treaty  which 
they  understood  in  senses  directly  opposite,  the  wisest  course  is 
to  abrogate  such  treaty  by  mutual  consent  and  to  commence 
anew."  That  was  no  surprise  to  the  British  government,  for 
Buchanan  had  made  no  secret  of  his  purpose  to  make  such  a 
recommendation.  Indeed,  some  time  before,  Lord  Napier,  the 
British  minister  at  Washington,  had  written  home  that  an  at 
tempt  would  be  made  at  the  next  session  of  Congress  to  abrogate 
the  treaty,  and  that  Buchanan  and  his  cabinet  were  in  favor  of 
such  action.  The  British  government,  however,  did  not  want 
that  treaty  to  be  abrogated,  and  did  not  mean  that  it  should  be, 
if  it  could  prevent  it.  Napier  therefore  exerted  all  his  diplo- 


454  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

matic  skill  against  it,  and  was  effectively  supported  by  his  gov 
ernment.  Taking  advantage  of  the  death  of  Walker,  the  end  of 
filibustering,  and  the  restoration  of  tranquillity  to  Central 
America  except  for  a  little  friction  on  the  Nicaragua-Costa 
Rica  boundary,  Sir  William  Ouseley  was  sent  to  Central  America 
as  a  special  representative  of  the  British  crown,  to  play  the  part 
of  a  general  peacemaker  and  to  compose  all  the  lingering  dis 
putes  among  the  States. 

Napier,  in  reporting  to  Buchanan's  secretary  of  state,  General 
Lewis  Cass,  the  mission  of  Ouseley,  suggested  that  the  differ 
ences  between  the  two  governments  might  be  settled  in  either 
of  two  ways.  One  was,  to  submit  the  disputed  points  of  the 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  to  arbitration;  the  arbitrator,  however, 
to  be  some  European  power — which  would  have  meant  in  ad 
vance  defeat  for  the  United  States.  The  other  was,  to  abrogate 
the  treaty  and  return  to  the  status  quo  of  1852,  in  which  the 
United  States  would  practically  recognize  British  sovereignty 
over  Belize,  the  Bay  Islands,  and  the  Mosquito  coast,  and  thus 
practically  surrender  the  whole  American  case.  The  presenta 
tion  of  these  alternatives  considerably  cooled  Buchanan's  ardor 
for  abrogation,  and  he  listened  meekly  to  Napier's  further  sug 
gestion  that  he  should  trust  the  good  intentions  of  Great  Britain, 
and  that  in  this  forthcoming  message  he  should  say  nothing 
that  might  lead  to  immediate  abrogation,  since  such  action 
would  probably  frustrate  Ouseley 's  benevolent  mission  and 
"have  a  calamitous  influence  on  the  future  relations  of  England 
and  America."  Buchanan  walked  into  the  trap,  and,  credu 
lously  imagining  that  the  British  government  would  accept  the 
American  interpretation  of  the  treaty,  said  nothing  in  his  mes 
sage  in  favor  of  abrogation. 

Ouseley  found  Central  America  quiescent,  the  five  States  in 
clined  to  draw  together  for  their  general  good,  and  all  some 
what  ill-disposed  toward  the  United  States  and  therefore  favor 
ably  disposed  toward  Great  Britain.  The  result  of  his  mission 
was  the  making  of  three  treaties,  all  highly  favorable  to  the 
British  claims  and  designs.  One,  with  Guatemala,  trebled  the 
area  of  Belize  and  confirmed  the  British  title  to  it.  The  second, 
with  Honduras,  restored  to  that  country  the  nominal  ownership 
of  the  Bay  Islands,  but  imposed  this  condition,  that  Honduras 


ISTHMIAN  INTERESTS  455 

should  never  surrender  them  on  any  terms  to  any  other  power. 
Under  the  third,  with  Nicaragua,  Great  Britain  nominally 
withdrew  from  her  protectorate  over  the  Mosquito  Indians  and 
surrendered  that  coast  to  Nicaragua,  but  stipulated  that  a  reser 
vation  should  be  set  apart  for  the  Indians  comprising  a  great 
stretch  of  coast,  in  which  the  Indians  were  to  have  complete 
local  self-government ;  Greytown  was  to  be  a  free  port ;  and 
all  land  grants  which  the  Indians  had  made  to  Englishmen  were 
to  be  confirmed.  Thus  Nicaragua  was  trapped  into  conceding 
Great  Britain's  right  to  intervene  between  her  and  the  Mos 
quito  Indians. 

The  British  government  promptly  communicated  these  treaties 
to  the  United  States,  with  an  expression  of  hope  that  they 
would  meet  with  approval  and  would  finally  settle  all  differences 
over  the  interpretation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty.  Bu 
chanan  again  walked  into  the  trap,  and  announced  to  Congress 
that  "a  final  settlement  entirely  satisfactory  to  this  Govern 
ment  ' '  had  been  effected.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  United  States 
lost  practically  all  for  which  it  had  contended,  while  Great 
Britain  gained  nearly  all  at  which  she  had  aimed.  The  Central 
American  States  were  put  into  the  position  of  receiving  from 
Great  Britain,  as  grants  of  her  bounty,  the  very  things  which 
they  and  we  had  formerly  declared  to  be  their  own  by  original 
right  and  title.  The  project  of  a  canal  across  the  isthmus  was 
dismissed  to  the  indefinite  future.  And  then  the  Civil  War 
in  the  United  States  came  on,  during  which  our  Government 
had  little  time  to  give  to  the  petty  politics  of  Central  America. 


XVII 

EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS 

AMERICAN  relations  with  the  lands  of  the  Pacific  began 
at  an  early  date,  though  it  was  many  years  before  they 
reached  an  important  stage  of  development.  In  the  year  fol 
lowing  the  making  of  peace  at  the  end  of  the  revolution,  an 
American  ship  first  entered  the  Chinese  port  of  Canton.  This 
was  on  August  30,  1784.  The  ship  was  named  The  Empress  of 
China,  in  compliment  to  the  country  it  was  to  visit,  it  hailed 
from  New  York,  and  it  was  commanded  by  Captain  John  Green. 
The  supercargo,  Samuel  Shaw,  wrote  home  to  John  Jay,  the 
secretary  of  foreign  affairs  of  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation, 
that  the  American  flag  had  been  treated  with  respect  by  the 
Chinese,  and  that  because  of  this  visit  Americans  had  been 
placed  "in  a  more  conspicuous  point  of  view  than  has  com 
monly  attended  the  introduction  of  other  nations"  into  China. 
The  vessel  had  been  saluted  cordially  by  two  French  men-of- 
war  in  the  Straits  of  Sunda,  and  on  its  arrival  at  Canton,  or 
Macao,  it  was  similarly  greeted  by  all  the  foreign  vessels  which 
were  assembled  there.  The  officers  of  these  vessels  and  of  the 
various  European  establishments  visited  the  ship  and  made  it 
plain  that  they  recognized  the  United  States  as  a  new  sovereign 
power  in  commerce  as  well  as  in  war  or  politics.  The  Chinese 
were  naturally  at  a  loss  to  understand  the  difference  between 
Americans  and  Englishmen,  since  both  spoke  the  same  language 
and  dressed  in  the  same  garb.  They  were  able,  however,  to 
appreciate  the  significance  of  a  map  of  North  America,  which 
was  shown  to  them,  and  they  expressed  much  pleasure  at 
the  establishment  of  commercial  intercourse  with  so  extensive 
and  populous  a  country.  Thereafter  many  American  vessels 
sought  that  part  of  the  world.  "They  plowed  the  wide  ocean 
in  every  direction,"  says  Gutzlaff,  the  German  historian.  Ships 
bound  for  Canton  by  way  of  the  Atlantic  and  Indian  oceans 

456 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  457 

touched  on  the  way  at  ports  of  Africa,  India,  and  the  Dutch 
East  Indies,  and  did  much  commerce  there.  Those  going  by 
way  of  Cape  Horn  engaged  largely  in  the  fur  trade,  taking  seal 
and  other  skins  from  both  the  south  and  the  north  Pacific  to 
China,  where  there  was  always  an  insatiable  market  for  them. 
In  a  few  years,  indeed,  Americans  secured  almost  a  monopoly 
of  the  fur  trade  on  the  Pacific.  In  1801  they  carried  to  Canton 
no  fewer  than  427,000  seal  skins. 

It  was  on  the  strength  of  the  report  which  was  made  to  him 
by  Shaw,  the  supercargo  of  that  first  American  ship  at  Canton, 
that  Jay,  on  January  20,  1786,  recommended  to  Congress  con 
sideration  of  the  propriety  of  appointing  consular  officers  at 
Canton  and  other  Chinese  ports.  The  suggestion  was  favorably 
received,  and  seven  days  later  Shaw  was  made  consul  at  Canton. 
No  salary  or  perquisites  were  attached  to  the  office,  but  Jay, 
in  his  letter  transmitting  the  commission,  remarked  that  "so 
distinguished  a  mark  of  the  confidence  and  esteem  of  the  United 
States"  would  naturally  give  its  recipient  a  great  degree  of 
"weight  and  respectability"  in  China.  Shaw  was  a  man  of 
fine  character  and  high  ability,  who  had  served  with  distinction 
in  the  Revolution,  and  he  was  admirably  fitted  to  be  the  first 
official  representative  of  his  country  in  the  great  Oriental  Em 
pire.  At  that  time  foreign  vessels  were  not  permitted  to  go 
directly  to  Canton.  They  halted  at  the  Portuguese  settlement 
of  Macao,  and  there  received  special  permission  to  proceed  to 
Whampoa,  fourteen  miles  from  Canton,  where  they  were  com 
pelled  to  be  moored  and  to  send  their  cargoes  in  native  boats 
to  a  market  place  outside  the  walls  of  Canton.  There  the  bar 
gaining  with  Chinese  merchants  was  done,  and  cargoes  for  the 
return  voyage  were  secured  by  purchase  or  barter.  Shaw  re 
ported  that  the  Chinese  merchants  were  punctual,  exact,  jealous 
of  their  good  repute,  and  l(a  set  of  as  respectable  men  as  are 
commonly  found  in  other  ports  of  the  world."  Shaw  died  in 
1794,  while  returning  to  the  United  States  for  a  visit,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Samuel  Snow,  who  had  much  difficulty  in  get 
ting  permission  from  the  Portuguese  government  for  him  to 
live  at  Macao.  Such  permission  had  to  be  granted  specially  to 
each  foreigner  who  wished  to  reside  there,  and  it  was  granted 
only  through  the  application  of  the  secretary  of  state.  Snow 


458  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

made  application  in  due  form,  but  never,  apparently,  received 
the  permit.  But  he  remained  there  on  sufferance  for  ten 
years.  In  1804  Edward  Carrington  succeeded  to  the  place,  and 
found  that  even  in  those  remote  regions  British  warships  were 
searching  American  vessels  and  impressing  members  of  their 
crews. 

When  the  War  of  1812  came  on,  American  trade  with  Canton 
nearly  ceased.  There  were  some  exchanges  of  prisoners  be 
tween  British  and  American  vessels  at  Macao,  and  one  British 
ship,  the  Doris,  cruised  for  a  time  off  that  port,  to  seize  all 
American  ships  which  might  approach.  This  gave  great  offense 
to  the  Chinese  authorities,  who  told  the  commander  of  the  Doris 
that  if  the  British  and  Americans  wanted  to  fight,  or  had  any 
quarrels  to  settle,  they  must  go  elsewhere  to  do  it  and  not  violate 
the  neutrality  of  Chinese  waters.  The  commander  refused  to 
take  the  hint,  and  remained  there  and  continued  his  seizures; 
at  which  the  Chinese  suspended  all  dealings  with  British  mer 
chants.  After  the  war  commerce  rapidly  revived  and  continued 
undisturbed  until  1821,  when  a  tragic  incident  occurred.  An 
Italian  member  of  the  crew  of  an  American  vessel — the  Ter- 
ranova — accidentally  dropped  a  heavy  earthen  jar  over  the  side 
of  the  ship,  which  fell  upon  and  killed  a  Chinese  woman  in  a 
boat.  The  captain  of  the  ship  refused  to  surrender  the  man 
for  trial  ashore,  but  offered  to  let  the  authorities  come  aboard 
the  ship  and  try  him  there.  The  Chinese  thereupon  invaded 
the  ship  in  force,  took  the  man  ashore,  tried,  condemned,  and 
executed  him,  and  returned  his  body  to  the  ship.  During  this 
incident  all  trade  with  Americans  was  suspended,  but  after  the 
execution  the  viceroy  issued  an  edict  reopening  trade,  arguing 
in  vindication  of  his  course,  and  saying :  l '  In  every  similar  case 
foreigners  ought  to  give  up  murderers,  and  thus  they  will  act 
in  a  manner  becoming  the  tenderness  and  gracious  kindness 
with  which  the  Celestial  Empire  treats  them."  No  action  was 
taken  by  the  American  government  concerning  this,  but  the  in 
cident  was  remembered  and  had  weight  when  formal  treaty 
relations  were  established  between  the  two  countries. 

China  was  not,  however,  to  be  the  first  Asiatic  country  to 
enter  into  treaty  relations  with  the  United  States.  Various 
depredations  upon  American  commerce  in  the  Indian  seas,  cul- 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  459 

minating  in  the  plundering  of  the  ship  Friendship  and  the  mur 
der  of  her  crew  by  natives  of  Sumatra  in  1831,  moved  the 
American  government  to  send  Edmund  Roberts  of  New  Hamp 
shire  as  a  special  envoy  to  observe  the  conditions  of  commerce 
in  that  part  of  the  world  and  to  make  such  treaties  or  other 
arrangements  as  would  conduce  to  its  greater  security.  He  went 
on  this  errand,  in  the  United  States  ship  Peacock,  accompanied 
by  a  naval  schooner,  in  1832.  Going  by  the  way  of  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  he  went  first  to  Manila  and  Canton.  On  reach 
ing  the  latter  port,  it  was  observed  that  his  ship  was  not  a 
merchantman,  but  "had  on  board  an  unusual  number  of  sea 
men,  cannon,  and  weapons."  Whereupon,  said  the  imperial 
commissioner  in  a  decree,  "she  is  not  allowed,  under  any  pre 
text,  to  anchor  and  create  disturbances.  Let  her  be  driven 
away!  The  captain  is  not  allowed  to  frame  excuses,  linger 
about,  and  create  disturbances,  and  so  involve  offenses.  Let  the 
day  of  her  departure  be  reported.  Haste!  Haste!"  Roberts 
took  no  notice  of  this,  however,  but  remained  at  Canton,  or 
Macao,  for  six  weeks.  His  ship,  he  said,  could  have  destroyed 
the  whole  Chinese  fleet. 

From  Canton  he  went  to  Anam  and  Cochin  China,  but  would 
not  submit  to  the  humiliating  formalities  which  were  demanded 
as  precedent  to  the  making  of  a  treaty,  and  so  accomplished 
nothing  there.  There  was,  however,  a  fine  touch  of  humor  in 
his  brief  intercourse  with  the  Anamese  government.  He  was 
asked  what  titles  of  nobility  he  bore,  and  replied  that  he  had 
none.  He  was  then  told  that  nobody  could  approach  a  minister 
of  state  who  had  not  at  least  a  number  of  titles  equal  to  his. 
At  this  Roberts  confessed  that  he  had  a  few  titles,  which  he 
would  humbly  submit,  and  to  the  bewildered  scribe  he  enumer 
ated  them  as  follows:  "Edmund  Roberts,  a  special  envoy  from 
the  United  States,  a  citizen  of  Portsmouth,  in  the  State  of  New 
Hampshire;  of  Rockingham,  Coos,  Strafford,"  etc.,  naming  all 
the  counties  of  the  State;  "of  Nashua,  Concord,  Manchester," 
etc.,  naming  all  the  cities;  "of  Merrimack,  Ammonoosuc, 
Androscoggin, "  etc.,  naming  all  the  rivers;  "of  Monadnock, 
Winnepesaukee,  Chocorua,"  etc.,  enumerating  all  the  lakes, 
mountains,  and  what  not  that  he  could  recall ;  and  he  was  about 
to  proceed  with  various  other  catalogues  when  the  officials  de- 


460  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

clared  that  the  list  already  far  exceeded  that  of  the  most  distin 
guished  nobleman  in  the  empire ;  if  not  of  the  emperor  himself ! 
So  there  was  no  further  question  of  Roberts 's  rank  and  worth. 

In  the  neighboring  Kingdom  of  Siam  he  was  received  in  a 
more  hospitable  and  reasonable  manner,  characteristic  of  the 
amiable  people  of  that  land,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks 
was  able  to  negotiate  ajireaty  of  amity  and  commerce.  This 
was  signed  on  March  2(J,  i8lj,  and  was  the  first  treaty  ever  made 
by  the  United  States  with  an  Asiatic  power.  It  was  written  in 
both  English  and  Siamese,  but  as  the  Americans  could  not  un 
derstand  Siamese  and  the  Siamese  knew  no  English,  there  were 
appended  Portuguese  and  Chinese  translations.  This  treaty  re 
moved  various  difficulties  from  the  way  of  trade,  abolished  some 
barbarous  rules,  and  not  only  placed  American  commerce  with 
Siam  upon  a  friendly  basis  but  established  cordial  relations 
between  the  two  countries,  which  have  ever  since  continued. 

From  Siam,  Roberts  went  to  various  ports  on  the  Malay 
Peninsula,  but  made  no  treaties,  though  presents  were  given 
to  various  potentates  and  civilities  were  exchanged.  Thence  he 
proceeded  to  Muscat,  whose  sultan  ruled  over  a  large  and  rich 
empire,  extending  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  Zanzibar,  whose 
merchantmen  conducted  commerce  with  all  countries  between 
Manila  and  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  whose  navy  was  by 
far  the  most  formidable  in  all  that  part  of  the  world.  Here  he 
was  received  in  a  manner  gratefully  contrasting  with  that  which 
had  prevailed  in  the  lands  of  the  Far  East.  There  was  none 
of  the  "  abasing,  crawling,  and  crouching,  and  *  knocking  head/ 
like  a  parcel  of  slaves;  but  all  was  manly,  and  every  one  stood 
on  his  feet."  The  sultan  was  a  man  and  he  received  his  visitor 
as  a  man.  Their  intercourse  was  straightforward  and  practical, 
and  soon  produced  results.  A  treaty  was  made  with  little  diffi 
culty  and  no  needless  delay.  Trade  was  granted  with  no  port 
charges  or  other  burdens,  save  a  tariff  of  five  per  cent.  Roberts 
suggested  an  article  providing  that  American  seamen  who  were 
shipwrecked  on  the  sultan's  coasts  should  be  cared  for  at  the 
expense  of  their  own  government,  but  to  this  the  sultan  de 
murred.  It  was  contrary,  he  said,  to  the  principles  of  hos 
pitality  which  prevailed  in  his  empire.  And  so  he  inserted 
instead  a  provision,  that  shipwrecked  seamen  should  be  succored, 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  461 

maintained,  and  returned  to  their  homes  at  his  expense,  "for," 
the  treaty  ran,  as  dictated  by  him,  "the  sultan  can  never  receive 
any  remuneration  whatever  for  rendering  succor  to  the  dis 
tressed." 

After  the  making  of  this  highly  satisfactory  treaty  the  sultan 
wrote  a  personal  letter  to  the  President,  which  ran  in  part  as 
follows :  the  effusive  rhetoric  being  much  more  sincere  than  that 
of.  most  oriental  potentates  in  similar  utterances : 

"In  the  name  of  God,  amen!  To  the  most  high  and  mighty 
Andrew  Jackson,  President  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
whose  name  shines  with  so  much  splendor  throughout  the 
world.  I  pray  most  sincerely  that  on  the  receipt  of  this  letter 
it  may  find  his  Highness,  the  President  of  the  United  States,  in 
high  health,  and  that  his  happiness  may  be  constantly  on  the 
increase.  On  a  most  fortunate  day  and  at  a  happy  hour,  I  had 
the  honor  to  receive  your  Highness 's  letter,  every  word  of  which 
is  clear  and  distinct  as  the  sun  at  noonday  and  every  letter  shone 
forth  as  brilliantly  as  the  stars  in  the  heavens;  your  Highness 's 
letter  was  received  from  your  faithful  and  highly  honorable 
representative  and  ambassador,  Edmund  Roberts,  who  made  me 
supremely  happy  in  explaining  the  object  of  his  mission,  and  I 
have  complied  in  every  respect  with  the  wishes  of  your  honor 
able  ambassador,  in  concluding  a  treaty  of  friendship  and  com 
merce  between  our  respective  countries,  which  shall  be  faithfully 
observed  by  myself  and  my  successors,  as  long  as  the  world 
endures. ' ' 

The  treaties  with  Siam  and  Muscat  were  accepted  by  the 
President  and  ratified  by  the  Senate,  and  Roberts  was  sent  back 
again,  on  a  naval  vessel,  to  exchange  ratifications.  After  per 
forming  that  duty,  he  proceeded  to  Canton,  where  he  was  again 
ordered  to  leave  at  once,  and  where  he  again  ignored  the  order. 
Unhappily,  there  was  an  outbreak  of  a  virulent  epidemic  at 
Macao,  to  which  he  succumbed,  dying  on  June  12,  1836.  A 
monument  was  erected  over  his  grave  at  Macao,  and  a  memorial 
window  was  placed  in  St.  John's  Church,  Portsmouth,  New 
Hampshire,  the  city  of  his  birth;  in  honor  of  the  founder  of 
American  diplomatic  relations  with  the  countries  of  the  Far 
East.  It  should  be  added  that  Roberts  was  also  commissioned  to 
visit  Japan  and  to  undertake  the  establishment  of  relations  with 


462  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

that  country,  but  was  unable  to  do  so  before  his  illness  and  death. 

While  this  accomplished  envoy  was  conducting  his  dignified 
and  effective  negotiations,  a  grave  controversy  was  brewing  be 
tween  Great  Britain  and  China  into  which  the  United  States 
was  eventually  drawn.  In  1834  the  British  East  India  Com 
pany  withdrew  its  agents  from  Canton,  and  the  British  gov 
ernment  sent  an  envoy,  Lord  Napier,  thither  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  for  the  regulation  of  trade.  The  Chinese  authorities 
declined  to  receive  him  excepting  on  conditions  which  he  justly 
regarded  as  intolerably  humiliating.  He  was  called  a  "  bar 
barian"  and  the  British  generally  were  similarly  insulted. 
Napier  exercised  all  possible  patience,  but  after  some  months  of 
fruitless  effort  to  open  negotiations  he  replied  with  spirit  to 
the  insults  of  the  Chinese  governor,  warning  him  that  the  King 
of  England  was  a  far  more  powerful  monarch  than  the  Chinese 
Emperor.  He  was  ordered  to  leave  Macao,  but  refused.  Then 
all  trade  with  the  British  was  stopped.  A  British  force  was 
sent  up  to  Macao  to  guard  the  British  establishments  there,  and 
British  warships  came  up  the  river  and  exchanged  fire  with  the 
forts.  Then  a  truce  was  arranged.  Napier  withdrew  to  await 
further  instructions  from  home,  and  trade  was  resumed.  But 
a  few  weeks  later,  worn  out  with  labor,  anxiety,  and  exposure 
to  the  elements,  Napier  died  at  Macao  on  September  11,  1834. 

The  American  consul  at  Macao  reported  these  things  in  detail 
to  the  Government  at  Washington,  adding  that  a  war  between 
China  and  Great  Britain  was  imminent,  in  which  it  might  be 
well  for  the  United  States  to  intervene,  either  as  an  ally  of 
Great  Britain,  since  that  country  was  manifestly  in  the  right,  or 
else  with  an  independent  display  of  force  sufficient  to  make 
effective  the  demand  that  this  country  should  be  permitted  to 
share  in  whatever  advantages  might  be  granted  to  or  be  secured 
by  its  Anglo-Saxon  colleague.  To  the  surprise  of  the  American 
government,  however,  the  British  ministry  declined  to  support 
the  stand  which  Napier  had  taken,  or  to  take  any  further  action 
in  the  case,  and  the  incident  closed  with  the  Chinese  more  con 
firmed  than  ever  in  their  policy  of  exclusion  and  in  their  con 
temptuous  regard  of  all  foreigners  as  "barbarians."  Instead 
of  waging  war  at  that  time,  when  it  had  just  cause  for  doing 
so,  the  British  government  waited  a  few  years  and  then  began 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  463 

hostilities  on  grounds  which  have  generally  been  regarded  as  not 
only  inadequate  but  positively  disgraceful. 

This  was  what  is  known  as  the  Opium  War,  in  the  beginning 
of  which  America  was  somewhat  interested.  Two  merchants 
at  Macao,  Innes,  an  Englishman,  and  Talbot,  an  American,  were 
accused  of  smuggling  opium  into  China  and  were  ordered  to  be 
expelled.  Innes  was  .perhaps  guilty;  but  Talbot  was  certainly 
innocent,  as  investigation  proved.  The  British  superintendent 
hesitated  to  expel  Innes,  and  the  Chinese  organized  violent  mob 
demonstrations  against  both  the  British  and  American  con 
sulates.  As  a  further  mark  of  hostility  the  Chinese  attempted 
to  execute,  directly  in  front  of  the  American  consulate,  the  death 
sentence  upon  a  Chinaman  who  had  been  caught  smuggling 
opium.  This  indignity  was  frustrated  by  a  united  sally  of  the 
foreign  merchants,  but  a  little  later  a  death  sentence  was  actually 
executed  by  the  Chinese  on  the  grounds  of  the  American  factory. 
At  this  insulting  outrage  all  the  foreign  consuls  hauled  down 
their  flags  and  closed  their  offices,  and  all  trade  was  suspended. 

Following  this,  the  Chinese  government  demanded  that  the 
foreign  merchants  should  at  once  surrender  all  the  opium  in 
their  possession.  They  demurred,  whereupon  the  foreign  set 
tlement  was  completely  surrounded  by  an  overwhelming  force 
of  Chinese  soldiers,  no  communication  with  the  outer  world 
was  permitted,  the  foreign  merchants  and  their  clerks  were  held 
as  close  prisoners,  all  their  books  and  papers  were  seized,  and 
about  $8,000,000  worth  of  opium  was  confiscated.  A  small  por 
tion  of  this  was  in  the  possession  'of  American  merchants, 
though  none  of  it  actually  belonged  to  them.  After  this  trade 
was  resumed,  but  all  the  British  merchants  left  Canton.  The 
Americans  remained,  though  the  American  consul  declared  him 
self  in  full  sympathy  with  the  British.  The  British  govern 
ment  at  once  began  preparations  for  a  war,  which  began  in  June, 
1840,  at  which  time  all  Americans  left  Canton.  The  Chinese 
were  of  course  easily  beaten  by  the  British,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  war,  two  years  later,  were  compelled  to  pay  heavy  indemni 
ties  ;  though  strangely  enough  in  the  treaty  of  peace  not  a  word 
was  said  about  the  real  cause  of  the  war,  the  opium  traffic. 
After  the  war  that  traffic  was  openly  renewed  and  maintained 
for  seventy  years. 


464  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

We  need  not  here  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the 
Opium  War,  concerning  which  innumerable  volumes  have  been 
written.  It  should  be  kept  clearly  in  mind,  however,  that  while 
on  its  face  it  was  a  war  to  compel  submission  to  the  importation 
of  opium  into  China,  it  had  in  fact  a  far  deeper  purpose,  namely, 
to  do  the  work  which  Napier  had  vainly  undertaken,  in  com 
pelling  the  Chinese  government  to  treat  other  nations  with 
decency  and  respect,  as  its  equals,  and  to  establish  friendly  re 
lations  with  the  world  at  large.  As  a  mere  opium  war,  it  was 
thoroughly  reprehensible;  but  as  a  conflict  for  international 
rights  and  for  improved  relations  between  China  and  the  rest  of 
the  world,  it  was  of  great  beneficence,  to  China  itself  as  well  as 
to  other  nations. 

The  United  States  did  not  take  part  in  this  war,  tyut  it  main 
tained  a  naval  squadron  under  Commodore  Kearny  in  the  ad 
jacent  waters,  for  purposes  of  observation  and  protection  of 
American  interests.  There  was  much  mob  violence  against 
Americans  and  their  property,  and  there  were  some  illegal  ar 
rests;  for  which  Kearny  exacted  a  heavy  indemnity  from  the 
Governor  of  Canton.  Still  more  important  were  the  services 
which  he  performed  at  the  end  of  the  war.  Learning  that  in 
the  peace  treaty  new  tariff  and  trade  regulations  were  to  be 
made  between  China  and  Great  Britain,  he  resolutely  demanded 
that  American  citizens  should  be  included,  to  enjoy  the  same  ad 
vantages;  in  brief,  that  the  "most  favored  nation"  principle 
should  be  established  in  their  behalf.  The  Governor  of  Canton 
agreed  that  this  should  be  done,  testifying  that  American  mer 
chants  in  China  had  not  been  guilty  of  smuggling  or  other 
illicit  practices  but  had  confined  themselves  to  honorable  trade. 
On  receiving  this  assurance  Kearny  would  have  taken  his  de 
parture,  but  the  American  consul  urged  him  to  stay,  as  the 
presence  of  his  vessels  would  have  a  salutary  effect  upon  the 
Chinese  commissioners  who  were  coming  thither  to  make  the 
treaty.  Kearny  accordingly  remained,  and  secured  from  the 
commissioners  the  formal  and  explicit  assurance  that  whatever 
trade  concessions  were  made  to  Great  Britain  should  be  fully 
and  equally  extended  also  to  the  United  States.  This  was  done, 
and  as  a  result  an  "open  door"  was  first  secured  in  China,  for 
all  nations  on  equal  terms;  a  result  which,  according  to  one  of 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  465 

the  British  commissioners  who  negotiated  that  treaty,  was  due 
to  Commodore  Kearny's  wise  and  resolute  action. 

Steps  were  promptly  taken  to  clinch  the  matter  by  the  nego 
tiation  of  a  commercial  treaty  with  China.  On  December  30, 
1842,  a  few  months  after  the  reestablishment  of  peace  between 
Great  Britain  and  China,  the  President  sent  a  special  message 
to  Congress  recommending  the  appointment  of  an  envoy  to 
China,  for  that  purpose.  This  message,  which  was  drafted  by 
Daniel  Webster,  secretary  of  state,  was  a  convincing  exposition 
of  the  importance  of  our  Chinese  commerce  and  the  need  of  such 
a  treaty.  Congress  promptly  approved  the  plan  and  made  an 
appropriation  for  its  execution.  Webster  prevailed  upon  the 
President  to  nominate  for  the  mission  Edward  Everett,  who  was 
then  minister  to  England,  in  order,  it  was  assumed,  that  he 
might  himself  retire  from  the  state  department  and  go  to  Lon 
don  in  Everett's  place.  But  Everett  declined  the  appointment, 
preferring  to  remain  in  London,  and  so  Caleb  Gushing,  a  rep 
resentative  from  Massachusetts,  was  sent  to  China;  abetter 
choice,  on  the  whole,  than  the  former,  as  Gushing,  an  astute 
lawyer  and  resolute  man,  was  eminently  fitted  to  deal  with  the 
subtleties  of  Chinese  diplomacy.  Webster's  son,  Fletcher 
Webster,  was  made  secretary  of  the  legation,  and  Dr.  Peter 
Parker,  a  medical  missionary,  and  the  Rev.  E.  C.  Bridgman, 
also  a  missionary  at  Canton,  were  made  assistant  secretaries, 
because  of  their  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  language.  A  surgeon 
and  five  attaches  also  accompanied  the  legation,  Webster  holding 
that  such  numbers  would  add  dignity  and  importance  to  the 
mission  in  the  eyes  of  the  Chinese.  In  further  pursuance  of 
the  same  idea,  the  mission  was  conveyed  to  China  on  a  naval 
squadron  of  two  frigates  and  a  sloop  of  war. 

At  Macao,  Gushing  established  himself  in  the  palace  of  a 
former  Portuguese  governor,  and  assumed  the  air  of  the  repre 
sentative  of  a  power  fully  the  equal  of  China  in  importance. 
In  his  first  official  interviews  he  made  it  plain,  as  Webster  had 
instructed  him  to  do,  that  he  was  no  suppliant  for  favors  nor 
tribute-bearer,  that  he  had  come  neither  to  give  nor  to  receive 
presents,  that  he  was  the  envoy  of  a  great,  rich,  powerful,  and 
peaceful  nation,  which  sought  no  conquests  and  would  brook  no 
condescension,  and  that  he  sought  the  establishment  of  relations 

VOL.  I — 30 


466  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

between  equal  powers  which  would  be  for  their  mutual  advan 
tage.  The  one  handicap  which  he  had  to  bear,  fortunately  not 
heavy,  was  the  letter  from  the  President  to  the  emperor,  of 
which  he  was  the  bearer,  and  which  was  pitifully  trite  and 
puerile.  It  is  worth  quoting  as  a  curiosity  in  public  documents : 

"I,  John  Tyler,  President  of  the  United  States  of  America — 
which  States  are  (here  follow  the  list) — send  you  this  letter  of 
peace  and  friendship,  signed  by  my  own  hand. 

"I  hope  your  health  is  good.  China  is  a  great  empire,  ex 
tending  over  a  great  part  of  the  earth.  The  Chinese  are  numer 
ous.  You  have  millions  and  millions  of  subjects.  The  twenty- 
six  United  States  are  as  large  as  China,  though  our  people  are 
not  so  numerous.  The  rising  sun  looks  upon  the  great  moun 
tains  and  rivers  of  China.  When  he  sets,  he  looks  upon  rivers 
and  mountains  equally  large  in  the  United  States.  .  .  .  Now 
my  words  are,  that  the  governments  of  two  such  great  countries 
should  be  at  peace.  It  is  proper,  and  according  to  the  will  of 
Heaven,  that  we  should  respect  each  other,  and  act  wisely. 
I  therefore  send  to  you  Count  Caleb  Gushing,  one  of  the  wise 
and  learned  men  of  this  country.  On  his  arrival  in  your  coun 
try,  he  will  inquire  for  your  health.  .  .  .  Our  Minister  is  au 
thorized  to  make  a  treaty  to  regulate  trade.  Let  it  be  just.  Let 
there  be  no  unfair  advantage  on  either  side.  .  .  .  And  so  may 
your  health  be  good,  and  may  peace  reign." 

Gushing  reached  Macao  on  February  24,  1844,  and  three  days 
later  wrote  to  the  governor  apprising  him  of  his  errand,  and  say 
ing  that  he  had  of  necessity  stopped  there  for  a  few  days  before 
proceeding  to  Peking  to  deliver  the  President's  letter  to  the 
emperor.  The  governor  replied  with  the  elaborate  and  flowery 
courtesy  of  a  mandarin,  but  insisted  that  Gushing  must  not  go 
to  Peking  until  the  emperor's  wishes  in  the  matter  had  been  re 
vealed  to  him.  For  a  warship  to  go  to  the  Pei-ho  hastily  or 
uninvited  would  be  "to  put  an  end  to  civility."  If  Gushing 's 
errand  was  to  negotiate  a  trade  treaty,  the  emperor  would  doubt 
less  send  a  commissioner  to  deal  with  him  at  the  frontier.  In 
any  event,  Gushing  must  wait  at  Macao  until  the  emperor  could 
be  informed  of  his  mission  and  could  make  known  his  imperial 
pleasure. 

Gushing 's  reply  must  have  been  a  shock  to  the  slow-going 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  467 

Chinese.  He  said  that  the  Chinese  government,  and  presumably 
the  emperor,  had  been  informed  of  his  mission  by  the  American 
consul  months  before ;  that  if  the  emperor  had  wanted  the  nego 
tiations  to  take  place  at  the  frontier,  he  should  have  sent  his 
commissioner  to  Canton;  that  he  (Gushing)  had  been  directed 
by  the  President  to  deliver  his  letter  to  the  emperor  at  Peking, 
and  he  proposed  to  do  so ;  and  that  if  it  was  contrary  to  etiquette 
for  a  warship  to  approach  the  capital,  he  would  go  thither  from 
Canton  by  land.  Further  correspondence  ensued,  and  Gushing 
concluded  that  it  would  be  diplomatic  to  humor  the  Chinese 
love  of  ceremonious  delay,  so  he  waited  at  Macao  for  about  two 
and  a  half  months.  Then  word  came  from  the  emperor,  to  the 
effect  that  it  would  be  quite  irregular  for  an  American  envoy 
to  come  to  Peking,  or  even  to  Tientsin,  to  negotiate,  for  the 
reason  that  America  had  never  yet  paid  tribute  to  China,  but 
that  a  commissioner  with  the  imperial  seal  was  being  despatched 
post-haste  to  Canton,  to  meet  Gushing  and  conduct  the  nego 
tiations  there. 

Gushing  decided  to  accept  this  as  satisfactory,  partly  because 
of  the  recognition  of  America  as  a  nation  that  had  never  paid 
tribute  to  China.  If  going  to  Peking  was  a  mark  of  inferiority 
or  of  a  tributary  State,  he  had  no  desire  to  go  thither.  Also, 
the  commissioner  who  was  being  sent  was  no  other  than  Tsiyeng, 
who  enjoyed  the  emperor's  special  confidence,  and  who  was  the 
same  who  had  negotiated  that  treaty  with  Great  Britain  of 
which  Gushing  hoped  to  secure  a  duplicate  for  the  United 
States.  Early  in  June  Tsiyeng  arrived  at  Canton,  and  negotia 
tions  proceeded  with  reasonable  expedition,  with  only  a  single 
hitch.  This  occurred  when  in  two  of  Tsiyeng 's  letters  the  name 
of  the  Chinese  government  was  so  written  as  to  indicate  superior 
dignity  to  that  of  the  United  States.  Gushing  immediately 
returned  the  letters,  with  a  courteous  but  resolute  insistence 
upon  the  recognition  of  equality  between  the  two  nations. 
Tsiyeng  promptly  acquiesced  and  corrected  the  letters,  and  the 
negotiations  proceeded  so  expeditiously  that  within  two  weeks 
the  treaty  was  made  and  signed.  Tsiyeng  reached  Macao  on 
'June  16,  actual  discussion  of  the  treaty  began  on  June  21,  and 
the  instrument  was  signed  on  July  3,  in  a  temple  in  the  suburbs 
of  Macao.  Gushing  then  gave  up  the  design  of  going  to  Peking, 


468  AMERICA'S  FOEEIGN  RELATIONS 

and  entrusted  to  Tsiyeng  the  President's  letter  for  the  emperor. 
It  was  a  noteworthy  circumstance  that  down  to  the  time  of 
signing  the  treaty  the  American  envoy  had  not  set  foot  on 
Chinese  soil — Macao  being  Portuguese — and  had  not  met  a  single 
high  official  of  China  save  Tsiyeng  and  his  attendants. 

Cushing  had  been  instructed  and  had  expected  to  make  a 
practical  duplicate  of  the  British  treaty.  In  fact,  he  did  much 
better  than  that.  His  treaty  embodied  every  provision  of  the 
British  treaty,  and  no  fewer  than  sixteen  others  of  real  im 
portance.  This  was  a  great  triumph  for  the  United  States,  but 
it  was  an  equal  benefit  to  Great  Britain,  since  under  the  "most 
favored  nation"  principle  that  country  would  enjoy  the  same 
advantages  as  the  United  States.  In  referring  to  these  circum 
stances  in  his  letter  transmitting  the  treaty  to  the  secretary  of 
state,  Cushing  pointed  out  that  the  United  States  and  all  other 
nations  were  much  indebted  to  Great  Britain  for  opening  the 
door  in  China  with  her  treaty;  and  that  now  similarly  Great 
Britain  and  all  other  nations  would  be  indebted  to  the  United 
States  for  opening  the  same  door  a  little  wider  for  all  the  world. 
"Whatever  progress  either  government  makes  in  opening  this 
vast  empire  to  the  influence  of  foreign  commerce,  is  for  the 
common  good  of  each  other  and  of  all  Christendom. "  Thus 
early  was  there  promulgated  that  doctrine  of  "the  open  door 
and  equality  of  opportunity,"  which  John  Hay  so  greatly  mag 
nified  in  later  years ;  and  the  four  men  whose  names  should  for 
ever  be  associated  with  it  were,  in  the  order  of  time  of  their 
services,  Commodore  Kearny  of  the  United  States  Navy;  Sir 
Henry  Pottinger,  the  British  envoy,  and  Tsiyeng,  the  Chinese 
commissioner,  who  negotiated  the  Anglo-Chinese  treaty;  and 
Caleb  Cushing,  the  American  envoy.  Unless,  indeed,  we  were 
to  name  Lord  Napier,  first  of  all,  as  the  martyred  forerunner  of 
these. 

One  of  the  noteworthy  features  of  Cushing 's  treaty  was  the 
recognition  of  the  principle  of  extraterritorial  jurisdiction,  or 
"exterritoriality/'  as  it  is  commonly  known  in  international 
law.  This  provided  that  in  cases  of  crimes  committed  by 
Americans  in  China,  the  culprits  were  to  be  tried  and  punished 
according  to  American  law  and  by  American  judicial  authori 
ties;  that  in  civil  suits  between  Americans  in  China  the  Ameri- 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  469 

can  consuls  were  to  have  jurisdiction;  and  that  civil  cases  be 
tween  Americans  and  Chinese  were  to  be  disposed  of  by  the 
joint  action  of  American  and  Chinese  officials.  This  highly  im 
portant  provision  was  suggested,  no  doubt,  by  recollection  of  the 
Terranova  incident  in  1821,  hitherto  related  in  these  pages. 
This  principle  had  been  in  operation  for  centuries  to  a  limited 
extent  between  European  and  some  Mohammedan  countries,  and 
China  had  granted  it  in  a  measure  to  some  foreign  powers, 
but  Gushing  was  the  first  to  insist  upon  its  general  application 
as  a  world-wide  rule  between  Christian  and  all  non-Christian 
nations.  "The  United  States,"  he  said,  in  explaining  his  in 
troduction  of  the  provision  into  the  treaty,  "ought  not  to  con 
cede  to  any  foreign  State,  under  any  circumstances,  jurisdiction 
over  the  life  and  liberty  of  any  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
unless  that  foreign  State  be  of  our  own  family  of  nations;  in  a 
word,  a  Christian  State."  This  was  not  because  of  any  in 
feriority  of  the  other  States  in  sovereignty,  or  in  their  right  to 
their  own  codes  of  law.  It  was  simply  a  practical  recognition 
of  the  radical  difference  between  them  and  the  Christian  States. 
"Between  them  and  us,"  he  said,  "there  is  no  community  of 
ideas,  no  common  law  of  nations,  no  interchange  of  good  offices." 
Of  course  the  treaty  provision  thus  secured  by  Gushing  for  the 
United  States  was  of  equal  value  to  all  other  nations.  It  is  of 
interest  to  recall  that  the  first  practical  application  of  the  ex 
territoriality  rule  was  made  while  the  treaty  was  still  under 
negotiation.  A  mob  of  Chinese  attacked  the  foreign  settlement 
at  Macao,  some  Americans  fired  upon  them,  and  one  Chinaman 
was  killed.  The  Chinese  authorities  demanded  the  surrender 
of  the  slayer,  as  in  the  Terranova  case,  but  Gushing  demurred 
in  a  vigorous  letter  to  Tsiyeng.  A  jury  of  Americans  was  then 
empaneled  by  the  consul,  and  the  man  was  tried  and  acquitted 
on  the  ground  of  self-defense;  a  disposition  of  the  case  which 
the  Chinese,  on  Gushing 's  urging,  finally  accepted. 

The  great  value  of  Gushing 's  services  to  the  world  in  these 
transactions  was  widely  recognized,  nowhere  more  than  in  Great 
Britain.  In  China  alone  was  he  not  only  underestimated  but 
regarded  with  aversion  and  contempt.  He  himself  esteemed 
Tsiyeng  highly,  and  eulogized  him  in  his  correspondence  with 
the  Washington  government.  But  of  him  Tsiyeng  seems  to  have 


470  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

had  a  very  poor  opinion.  Complimentary  to  the  point  of  ful- 
someness  as  the  Chinese  commissioner  was  to  Gushing  to  his 
face,  when  he  came  to  write  of  him  to  the  emperor,  in  the 
memorial  accompanying  the  treaty,  he  adopted  a  very  different 
tone.  "The  original  copy  of  the  treaty,"  he  wrote,  "presented 
by  the  said  barbarian  envoy,  contained  forty-seven  stipulations. 
Of  these  some  were  difficult  of  execution,  others  foolish  demands ; 
and  the  treaty  was,  moreover,  so  meanly  and  coarsely  expressed, 
the  words  and  sentences  were  so  obscure,  and  there  was  such  a 
variety  of  errors,  that  it  was  next  to  impossible  to  point  them 
out.  Your  slave  Tsiyeng,  therefore,  directed  the  treasurer 
Hwang  and  all  the  deputed  mandarins  to  hold  interviews  with 
the  Americans  for  days  together.  We  clearly  pointed  out  what 
ever  was  comprehensible  to  reason,  in  order  to  dispel  their  stupid 
ignorance,  and  to  put  a  stop  to  delusive  hopes;  and  we  were 
obliged  to  polish  those  passages  which  were  scarcely  intelligible. 
.  .  .  Some  points  have  been  discussed  more  than  a  thousand 
times  at  least,  others  five  or  six  times.  It  was  then  that  the  said 
barbarian  envoy  submitted  to  reason,  and  being  at  a  loss  what 
to  say,  was  willing  and  agreed  to  have  the  objectionable  clauses 
expunged."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  Tsiyeng  himself  who 
was  ignorant  of  international  law,  and  to  whom  the  first  draft 
of  the  treaty  was  therefore  scarcely  intelligible. 

Gushing  was  criticized  for  not  persisting  in  going  on  to  Peking, 
but  on  the  whole  his  course  in  not  doing  so  seems  to  have 
been  commendable.  He  was  sent  to  China  primarily  and  es 
sentially  to  negotiate  the  treaty,  and  that  he  did  in  a  highly 
satisfactory  manner.  He  doubtless  did  it  more  quickly  and 
to  greater  advantage  at  Canton,  or  Macao,  than  would  have  been 
possible  at  Peking,  or  Tientsin,  especially  in  view  of  the  sus 
picion  and  resentment  which  his  going  thither  would  have 
caused.  It  is  a  diplomat's  duty  to  do  business  in  the  easiest 
and  most  acceptable  way,  provided  it  be  rightly  done,  and  that 
was  what  he  did  in  consenting  to  negotiate  at  Macao  instead  of 
at  the  capital.  Moreover,  to  go  on  to  Peking  after  making  the 
treaty  would  have  been  regarded  as  sharp  practice  and  would 
have  strained  the  very  relations  which  he  had  just  established. 
A  French  embassy  arrived  at  Macao  soon  after  he  had  concluded 
the  treaty,  and  negotiated  a  convention  on  similar  lines.  The 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  471 

French  envoy  is  said  to  have  proposed  to  Gushing  that  they 
should  join  forces  and  insist  upon  going  up  to  Peking  together, 
but  Gushing  declined.  He  remained  at  Macao  for  a  time,  doing 
several  things  for  the  good  of  the  American  settlement  there, 
and  then  returned  home.  He  was  succeeded  as  minister  or 
commissioner  to  China  in  1846  by  Alexander  H.  Everett,  who 
died  at  Canton  the  next  year  and  who  was  in  turn  succeeded 
by  John  W.  Davis. 

Further  controversies  with  China  arose  a  few  years  later.  In 
1840-50  the  American  minister,  Davis,  was  engaged  in  es 
tablishing  and  organizing  the  consular  system  of  exterritorial 
jurisdiction.  In  1852,  Humphrey  Marshall  of  Kentucky  be 
came  minister,  and  attempted  to  secure  an  interview  with  Mr. 
Yeh,  who  had  been  designated  by  the  emperor  as  a  commissioner 
to  treat  with  all  foreign  ministers  at  Canton.  Yeh  sent  word 
to  Marshall  that  he  was  too  busy  to  see  him  at  the  time  re 
quested,  but  would  at  some  future  time  give  himself  that  pleas 
ure.  Marshall  sharply  replied  that  such  delay  was  unsatisfac 
tory,  and  that  he  purposed  to  go  to  Shanghai  and  secure,  if 
possible,  transmission  of  the  President's  letter  to  the  emperor 
through  the  viceroy  of  that  province.  Failing  this,  he  would 
take  a  warship  and  go  to  Tientsin.  He  did  go  to  Shanghai  and 
was  courteously  received,  but  was  told  that  while  the  President 's 
letter  would  be  forwarded  promptly,  the  viceroy  had  no  au 
thority  to  do  business  with  him.  The  letter  was  forwarded, 
and  an  answer  was  returned;  in  the  somewhat  discourteous 
form,  however,  of  a  letter  to  the  viceroy,  instructing  him  to 
tell  the  American  minister  to  go  back  to  Macao  and  deal  with 
Yeh.  This  made  Marshall  the  more  eager  to  go  to  Tientsin. 
But  Commodore  Perry,  who  was  then  in  command,  could  not  or 
would  not  spare  him  a  ship  for  the  purpose,  regarding  his  plans, 
in  fact,  as  visionary ;  and  Marshall  had  to  content  himself  with 
sarcastic  railings  at  Perry  and  the  expedition  to  Japan  which 
he  was  about  to  undertake.  After  some  months  at  Shanghai, 
Marshall  returned  to  Macao  and  again  sought  an  interview  with 
Yeh,  but  in  vain;  and  in  1853  he  returned  to  America  without 
even  having  seen  that  elusive  commissioner. 

The  next  American  minister  to  China  was  Robert  M.  Mc- 
Lane,  in  1853,  an  accomplished  and  expert  diplomat.  He  had 


472  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

with  Yeh  practically  the  same  experience  that  Marshall  had 
suffered;  and  he,  too,  went  to  Shanghai,  but  found  the  viceroy 
unWilling  to  transmit  the  letter  to  the  emperor.  Then  he  went 
to  Hongkong  and  conferred  with  the  British  governor  of  that 
place,  and  also  with  the  French  minister.  They  were  agreed 
that  there  was  no  use  in  submitting  to  Yeh's  trifling  any  longer, 
but  that  pressure  must  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  Chinese 
government  for  redress  of  grievances ;  wherefore  if  Yeh  or  some 
other  official  would  not  promptly  give  them  satisfaction  at  Can 
ton  or  Shanghai,  they  would  go  on  with  force  to  Tientsin.  They 
waited  for  some  weeks  at  Shanghai,  and  then  proceeded  to  the 
Pei-ho,  arriving  there  on  October  15.  There  they  had  to  wait 
weeks  longer  before  an  envoy  from  the  emperor  came  to  treat 
with  them,  and  when  he  did  so  his  conduct  was  grossly  insulting. 
He  met  them  in  a  shabby  tent,  pitched  upon  the  muddy  bank 
of  the  river,  and  told  them  that  he  had  no  power  to  transact 
business  with  them,  but  merely  to  hear  what  they  had  to  say 
and  report  to  the  emperor. 

The  demand  of  the  envoys  was  for  a  revision  of  their  treaties 
with  China  according  to  the  clause  in  the  American- Chinese 
treaty  of  1844,  which  bound  the  two  governments  at  the  expira 
tion  of  twelve  years  to  treat  amicably  for  revision  in  view  of 
the  need  of  modifications  which  by  that  time  might  be  apparent. 
The  Chinese  commissioner,  while  disclaiming  authority  to  nego 
tiate,  told  McLane  that  the  modifications  which  seemed  to  be 
needed  were  not  sufficient  to  warrant  revision;  and  he  told 
Bowring,  the  British  envoy,  that  Great  Britain  had  no  title  to 
claim  revision  merely  because  of  the  clause  in  the  American 
treaty.  The  conference  thus  ended  in  failure  and  the  envoys 
returned  to  Shanghai.  McLane  reported  the  whole  matter  to 
the  President,  and  recommended  that  the  next  attempt  at  nego 
tiation  be  backed  up  with  a  strong  naval  force,  precisely  as  that 
of  Perry  had  been  in  Japan.  At  the  end  of  1854  McLane  re 
turned  to  America  and  resigned  his  mission,  leaving  Dr.  Parker 
in  charge.  The  latter  had  much  difficulty  in  protecting 
American  commerce  during  the  Tai-Ping  rebellion  which  was 
then  raging,  and  also  in  enforcing  the  neutrality  laws.  He  was 
highly  efficient,  however,  and  in  1855  was  appointed  full  com 
missioner  to  China  in  McLane 's  place. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  473 

It  should  be  remarked  in  passing  that  America  was  peculiarly 
interested,  in  a  personal  sense,  in  the  Tai-Ping  rebellion.  That 
gigantic  conflict  was  started  by  a  young  Chinaman  who  had 
studied  under  an  American  missionary,  the  Rev.  J.  J.  Roberts. 
He  professed  conversion  to  Christianity,  but  was  not  accepted 
by  the  mission  church ;  whereupon  he  proclaimed  himself  to  be 
a  younger  brother  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  had  been  sent  into  the 
world  to  overthrow  the  Manchu  dynasty  because  of  its  idolatry. 
He  professed  to  have  divine  revelations,  and  organized  a  vast 
but  fantastic  social  and  religious  system,  the  practices  of  which 
were  a  gross  and  vicious  travesty  upon  Christianity.  For  a 
time  he  and  his  followers  were  victorious,  and  seemed  likely 
to  overthrow  the  dynasty  and  conquer  all  China.  When  they 
had  captured  Nankin  and  made  it  their  capital  they  invited 
Roberts  to  go  thither  as  a  counselor  to  their  court.  The 
missionary  went  merely,  however,  as  a  private  visitor,  and  was 
disgusted  with  all  that  he  saw,  and  returned,  testifying  that  no 
trace  of  real  Christianity  was  perceptible  in  the  whole  move 
ment.  In  the  summer  of  1853  McLane  was  called  upon  to  con 
sider  the  possibility  of  having  to  recognize  the  insurgent  court 
as  the  de  facto  government  of  China.  Accordingly  he  visited 
Nankin,  for  investigation;  but  he,  too,  was  disgusted  with  the 
arrogance  and  vice  of  the  rebels,  and  declined  to  give  them  any 
political  recognition.  The  tide  of  war  was  finally  turned 
against  the  Tai-Pings  by  an  American,  Frederick  T.  Ward,  who 
organized  a  Chinese  army,  with  American  and  European 
officers,  in  support  of  the  Peking  government.  He  won  many 
victories,  but  was  eventually  killed  in  battle.  His  "ever  vic 
torious  army ' '  was  then  placed  under  command  of  the  illustrious 
Englishman,  Charles  Gordon,  and  succeeded  in  suppressing  the 
rebellion. 

At  the  beginning  of  1856  Dr.  Parker  renewed  efforts  to 
transmit  a  letter  from  the  President  to  the  emperor  and  to  nego 
tiate  for  treaty  revision,  but  found  Yeh  as  evasive  as  before. 
He  warned  that  worthy  that  such  conduct  would  not  much 
longer  be  tolerated  by  the  United  States,  and  then  set  out  for 
the  Pei-ho,  as  McLane  had  done  before  him.  But  at  Shanghai 
he  was  moved  to  turn  back,  for  lack  of  a  naval  force,  because 
of  the  lateness  of  the  season,  and  because  of  promises  that  the 


474  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

viceroy  would  transmit  the  letter.  The  letter  was  entrusted  to 
the  viceroy,  who  presently  returned  it,  with  the  seals  broken, 
and  with  the  statement  that  the  emperor  would  receive  through 
nobody  but  Yeh,  whom  he  had  designated  for  that  purpose. 
Simultaneously  with  this  incident,  Great  Britain  began  war  upon  » 
China  on  account  of  the  looting  of  the  lorcha  or  schooner 
Arrow,  and  Parker  was  inclined  to  recommend  that  the  United 
States  join  in  it  as  an  ally  of  Great  Britain.  This  was  not  done, 
but  an  incident  near  Canton  came  perilously  near  to  provoking 
war.  Two  American  boats,  belonging  to  naval  vessels,  were 
fired  upon  by  Chinese  forts,  and  one  man  was  killed.  There 
upon  an  American  warship  attacked  and  silenced  the  forts. 
The  next  day  a  note  was  sent  to  Yeh,  demanding  an  explanation 
and  apology.  Instead  of  sending  these,  Yeh  hurried  the  work 
of  rebuilding  the  forts.  At  this  the  Americans  made  another 
attack,  landed,  and  demolished  the  forts,  with  a  loss  of  seven 
killed  and  twenty-two  wounded.  The  Chinese  losses  were  sev 
eral  hundred.  Then  Yeh  explained  that  the  American  flag  had 
been  mistaken  for  the  British,  and  that  while  China  and  Great 
Britain  were  at  war  all  other  nationalities  ought  to  keep  away, 
and  then  no  such  mistakes  would  occur.  The  Washington  gov 
ernment  expressed  some  doubts  of  the  propriety  of  the  vigorous 
reprisals  against  the  forts,  and  urged  Parker  and  the  naval 
authorities  to  refrain  from  any  acts  which  would  look  like  join 
ing  in  England's  quarrel,  or  would  impair  friendly  relations 
with  China.  This  was  contrary  to  Parker's  policy,  he  favoring 
a  vigorous  assertion  of  American  rights  and  aggressive  coopera 
tion  with  Great  Britain  and  France  in  bringing  China  to  terms. 
It  was  with  some  relief,  therefore,  that  in  August,  1857,  he  re 
tired  from  the  office  which  he  had  filled  with  singular  fidelity 
and  efficiency  but  in  the  conduct  of  which  he  was  no  longer  in 
accord  with  his  own  government. 

"William  B.  Reed,  who  succeeded  him,  was  the  first  envoy  to 
China  who  bore  the  official  title  of  Minister  Plenipotentiary. 
He  was  at  first  committed  to  the  Government's  passive  policy, 
but  after  a  little  experience  with  Yeh  and  other  Chinese  officials 
he  took  precisely  the  same  view  that  Parker  had  taken.  He 
reported  that  nothing  but  an  actual  advance  upon  Peking  with 
a  decisive  force  would  bring  the  Chinese  government  to  a  fulfil- 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  475 

ment  of  its  treaty  obligations.  "Steadfast  neutrality  and  con 
sistent  friendship, ' '  he  said,  ' '  make  no  impression  on  the  isolated 
obduracy  of  this  empire. "  He  united  with  the  British  and 
French  representatives  in  identical  notes  to  the  Peking  govern 
ment,  and  reported  to  Washington  that  if  a  satisfactory  reply 
was  not  received  the  powers  would  proceed  in  force  to  the 
Pei-ho,  and  he  asked  for  authority  to  join  in  a  campaign  of 
coercion.  He  was  told  in  reply  that  the  time  for  such  action 
had  not  yet  come.  Accordingly,  when  an  altogether  unsatis 
factory  reply  was  received  to  the  note  to  the  Peking  govern 
ment,  he  was  compelled  to  remain  a  passive  spectator  of  events, 
while  the  British  and  French  stormed  the  Taku  forts  and  went 
to  Tientsin.  Thither  he  followed,  and  found  the  Chinese  au 
thorities  more  amenable  to  reason;  and  in  a  short  time  a  treaty 
was  negotiated.  In  this  work  Reed  was  assisted  by  Dr.  W.  A. 
P.  Martin,  a  Presbyterian  missionary  who  afterward  rose  to 
great  eminence  in  Chinese  educational  affairs. 

Four  treaties  were  made  at  that  time;  first  with  Russia, 
second  with  America,  third  with  Great  Britain,  and  fourth  with 
France.  They  were  in  general  much  alike,  and  each  of  them 
contained  the  "most  favored  nation"  proviso,  so  that  the 
stipulations  in  each  became  available  for  all  the  powers.  The 
chief  improvements  over  the  former  treaties  were  in  brief  that 
there  should  be  direct  access  by  foreign  ^ministers  to  the  Chinese 
government,  that  ministers  might  reside  at  Peking,  that  privi 
leges  of  travel,  trade,  and  ownership  of  property  should  be  en 
larged,  and  that  the  Christian  religion  should  be  tolerated  and 
its  native  converts  should  be  protected.  After  making  these 
treaties  the  envoys  went  to  Shanghai  and  there  made  supple 
mentary  conventions  for  regulating  trade  and  revising  the  tariff. 
Reed  was  also  successful  in  securing  an  indemnity  of  $753,288 
in  payment  of  long-standing  claims  of  American  citizens  against 
China  because  of  losses  during  the  British  hostilities.  The 
United  States  permitted  all  these  claims  to  be  examined  and 
adjudicated  in  China,  and  some  years  afterward  returned  to 
China  the  balance  of  $453,400  which  had  been  left  after  the  sat 
isfaction  of  all  claims  that  were  justly  established. 

Reed  was  succeeded  in  1859  by  John  E.  Ward,  who  started 
for  Peking  to  exchange  ratifications  of  Reed's  treaty.  The 


476  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Chinese  asked  him  to  come  thither  in  company  with  the  British 
and  French  envoys  who  were  on  similar  errands.  When  they 
reached  the  Pei-ho  they  found  the  entrance  barred,  and  orders 
issued  against  their  ascending  the  river.  The  commander  of 
the  British  squadron  purposed  to  fight  his  way  through  to 
Peking.  "Ward  desired  to  avoid  hostilities,  and  therefore  crossed 
the  bar  in  a  small  Chinese  steamer,  which  ran  aground.  The 
British  commander  sent  a  tug  to  pull  her  afloat  again,  but  in 
vain.  Ward  succeeded  in  communicating  with  the  Chinese  au 
thorities,  however,  and  was  informed  that  no  one  would  be 
allowed  to  pass  up  the  river,  but  that  ratifications  would  be  ex 
changed  at  another  point,  some  ten  miles  away.  This  was  made 
known  to  the  British,  with  the  result  of  quickening  their  de 
termination  to  force  the  passage;  the  more  so  because  it  was 
known  that  the  Russian  minister  had  already  reached  Peking 
&nd  exchanged  ratifications,  and  had  taken  up  his  residence 
there;  and  it  was  suspected  that  in  order  to  establish  Russian 
ascendancy  over  the  Chinese  government  he  was  secretly  en 
couraging  the  exclusion  of  all  others. 

Accordingly  the  next  day  the  British  and  French  ships  made 
a  general  attack  upon  the  forts,  in  which  they  were  repulsed  with 
heavy  losses.  Ward  and  the  American  commodore,  Tatnall,  re 
mained  passive  spectators  of  the  conflict  for  a  time.  Then, 
learning  that  the  British  admiral,  Hope,  was  wounded  and  his 
vessel  was  disabled,  and  remembering  the  service  which  he  had 
rendered  the  Americans  the  day  before,  the  gallant  Tatnall  ex 
claimed,  "I  can't  stand  this!  Blood  is  thicker  than  water!" 
and  set  out  with  a  boatload  of  his  men  to  Hope's  relief.  On 
the  way  the  coxswain  at  Tatnall's  side  was  shot  and  killed, 
but  the  rest  of  the  company  reached  Hope's  vessel,  and  while 
Tatnall  tendered  his  sympathy  to  the  wounded  admiral,  his  men 
assisted  the  British  crew  in  working  the  guns.  Tatnall  also 
used  his  steamer  to  tow  into  action  some  British  boats  which 
could  not  make  their  own  way  against  the  tide,  and  also  to 
receive  the  wounded  from  the  British  ships.  This  conduct  won 
him  much  praise  and  fame,  in  both  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain,  but  it  was  resented  by  the  Chinese,  and  made  Ward's 
dealings  with  them  more  difficult. 

After   their   repulse   the   British   and   French   withdrew   to 


EARLY  EASTERN  RELATIONS  477 

Shanghai  and  desired  Ward  to  do  the  same.  He,  however,  de 
clined,  on  the  ground  that  while  he  had  gone  to  the  Pei-ho  in 
company  with  them,  he  had  done  so  on  the  request  of  the 
Chinese,  as  a  matter  of  convenience,  and  was  in  no  way  bound 
to  them  as  an  ally.  He  therefore  determined  to  pursue  his  way 
independently  and  if  possible  to  proceed  to  Peking  and  ex 
change  ratifications.  He  went  to  the  designated  place  for  the 
meeting  with  the  governor-general  and  was  received  in  a  most 
courteous  and  respectful  manner,  and  was  escorted  by  him  to 
Peking.  There  he  and  his  suite  of  thirty  persons  were  made 
the  guests  of  the  emperor  and  were  entertained  with  imperial 
munificence.  The  treaty  commissioners,  with  whom  he  had  ne 
gotiated  at  Shanghai,  told  him  that  he  must  be  personally  pre 
sented  to  the  emperor,  and  for  two  weeks  discussions  continued 
as  to  the  manner  of  presentation.  The  commissioners  insisted 
that  he  must  prostrate  himself  before  the  emperor,  but  this 
Ward  indignantly  refused  to  do,  as  Perry  had  refused  to  grovel 
before  the  Japanese  throne.  Then  they  offered  to  compromise 
on  his  kneeling,  on  both  knees.  This  he  also  refused.  Finally 
they  asked  if  he  would  touch  one  knee  to  the  floor,  as  the  British 
envoy,  Lord  Elgin,  had  consented  to  do.  This  also  Ward  re 
fused,  saying  that  he  knelt  only  to  God  and  to  woman,  and  the 
emperor  was  neither.  "The  emperor  is  the  same  as  God,"  said 
the  Chinese.  ' '  Not  to  me, ' '  persisted  Ward ;  and  his  ultimatum 
was  that  he  would  salute  the  emperor  just  as  foreign  diplomats 
saluted  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  not  otherwise. 
To  this  the  Chinese  would  not  assent,  and  the  audience  was  ac 
cordingly  abandoned. 

Ward  then  demanded  exchange  of  ratifications,  since  the 
British  treaty  provided  that  this  should  be  done  at  Peking  and 
under  the  "most  favored  nation"  clause  the  United  States  was 
entitled  to  the  same  privilege.  The  Chinese  shrewdly  replied 
that  the  British  treaty  was  not  yet  in  force,  since  its  ratifications 
had  not  been  exchanged,  and  the  American  treaty  did  not  say 
where  the  exchange  was  to  take  place.  Ward  was  thus  con 
strained  to  yield  and  to  accept  the  exchange  at  the  place  desig 
nated  by  the  Chinese  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pei-ho.  Before  going 
thither,  however,  he  delivered  to  the  emperor's  prime  minister 
the  President 's  letter  to  the  emperor.  During  his  stay  in  Peking 


478  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

he  was  virtually  kept  a  prisoner  within  his  house,  not  being 
permitted  to  communicate  even  with  the  Russian  minister.  He 
then  returned  to  the  mouth  of  the  Pei-ho,  where  ratifications 
were  exchanged.  It  was  explained  to  him  that  the  authorities 
at  Peking  had  insisted  upon  his  prostrating  himself  before  the 
emperor  as  an  act  of  atonement  for  Tatnall's  conduct  in  aiding 
the  British.  Now,  however,  as  an  act  of  special  favor  to  him, 
the  emperor  would  surrender  to  him  an  American  who  had 
been  taken  prisoner  in  the  attack  upon  the  forts.  The  prisoner 
proved  to  be  a  Canadian,  in  the  British  service,  who  had  pre 
tended  to  the  Chinese  that  he  was  an  American  in  order  to  secure 
better  treatment.  Ward  was  criticized  and  ridiculed  by  many 
for  his  course  in  retiring  from  Peking,  but  he  was  sustained 
and  approved  by  his  own  Government,  and  the  verdict  of  his 
tory  is  that  he  acted  on  the  whole  with  dignity  and  discretion 
and  made  the  best  of  a  difficult  situation. 


XVIII 
THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN 

AMERICAN  intercourse  with  Japan  dates  from  1797,  in 
which  year  the  merchant  ship  Eliza,  commanded  by  Cap 
tain  Stewart,  visited  the  harbor  of  Nagasaki.  The  Dutch  East 
India  Company  had  then  for  some  time  had  relations  with 
Japan,  and  possessed  a  factory  on  one  of  the  islands  in  that 
harbor,  to  which  a  Dutch  ship  was  permitted  to  make  not  more 
than  one  visit  a  year.  But  Holland  was  at  that  time  under 
Napoleon's  domination  and  was  therefore  at  war  with  Great 
Britain,  and  it  was  perilous  for  Dutch  ships  to  undertake  the 
voyage  to  Japan.  This  American  vessel  was  therefore  chartered 
by  the  company  to  make  the  visit  of  that  year.  Thus  it  was 
through  European  complications  that  the  United  States  was 
first  brought  into  contact  with  Japan.  The  Japanese  at  that 
time  maintained  their  empire  in  singular  seclusion,  and  were 
ignorant  of  the  rise  of  the  United  States  as  a  new  power;  and 
they  were  in  consequence  much  surprised  at  the  appearance  of  a 
ship  in  the  employ  of  the  Dutch  but  under  a  strange  flag,  with 
a  crew  that  spoke  English  but  which  gave  no  allegiance  to  the 
British  crown.  They  permitted  the  vessel  to  fulfil  her  errand, 
however,  and  gave  similar  treatment  to  the  other  American  ves 
sels  which  came  thither  yearly  on  like  errands  during  the  con 
tinuance  of  the  Napoleonic  wars.  In  this  way  Japan  became 
aware  of  the  existence  of  the  United  States,  and  in  return  some 
knowledge  of  that  isolated  empire  was  imparted  to  the  American 
commercial  world. 

It  was  just  forty  years  after  that  first  visit,  in  1837,  however, 
that  the  first  serious  attempt  was  made  to  establish  relations 
with  Japan.  In  former  ages  the  Japanese  had  been  a  great 
seafaring  people,  the  veritable  Vikings  of  the  North  Pacific ;  but 
under  one  of  their  Shoguns,  lyemitsu,  in  1636,  all  ocean-going 
vessels  were  destroyed  and  the1  building  of  more  was  prohibited, 

479 


480  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

so  that  the  Japanese  were  thereafter  restricted  to  the  use  of 
small  coasting  vessels.  These  small  craft  were  occasionally  car 
ried  by  the  strong  ocean  currents  and  violent  storms  to  remote 
regions,  even  to  the  coasts  of  North  America.  Thus  seven  ship 
wrecked  Japanese  were  picked  up  on  the  Oregon  coast  by  agents 
of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company.  As  there  was  no  means  of  send 
ing  them  directly  home  across  the  Pacific  they  were  taken  over 
land  to  Canada,  thence  to  England,  and  thence  by  the  way  of 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Macao,  from  which  latter  place  they 
could  be  sent  up  the  Chinese  coast  to  Japan.  Their  arrival  at 
Macao  attracted  the  attention  of  D.  W.  C.  Olyphant  of  New 
York,  the  founder  of  one  of  the  chief  American  trading  houses 
at  Macao,  and  an  earnest,  enlightened,  and  generous  promoter 
of  missionary  efforts  in  China.  He  accordingly  fitted  out  a 
vessel  to  carry  these  Japanese  sailors  to  their  home,  with  the 
hope  that  thus  a  way  would  be  opened  for  the  establishment  of 
commercial  and  other  relations  with  Japan,  and  the  entrance 
of  missionaries  into  that  country.  The  vessel  was  named  the 
Morrison,  after  Robert  Morrison,  the  first  English  Protestant 
missionary  in  China,  who  had  gone  thither  under  Olyphant 's 
patronage.  Among  the  ship's  company  were  Mr.  King,  a  mem 
ber  of  Olyphant 's  firm,  and  his  wife;  Dr.  Peter  Parker,  the 
American  medical  missionary;  the  Rev.  W.  S.  Williams  of  the 
American  Board  of  Missions ;  and  Dr.  Gutzlaff,  the  German  mis 
sionary  and  historian  of  China.  In  order  to  allay  suspicion  and 
animosity,  the  vessel  carried,  or  at  least  displayed,  no  arms,  but 
was  stocked  with  commercial  goods.  It  was  hoped  that  a  land 
ing  would  be  permitted  and  that  the  Japanese  would  accept  the 
contents  of  the  vessel  as  presents,  and  would  listen  to  explana 
tions  of  the  greatness  and  the  friendly  disposition  and  desires 
of  the  United  States.  Instead  of  going  to  Nagasaki,  however, 
the  only  port  open  to  foreigners,  the  vessel  went  straight  to 
Yeddo  or  Tokio,  the  capital,  where  she  was  fired  upon  from  the 
forts  and  compelled  to  beat  a  hasty  retreat,  pursued  by  a  flotilla 
of  armed  boats.  Similar  repulses  were  encountered  at  other 
places  along  the  coast,  the  last  being  at  Kagoshima,  the  capital 
of  the  great  Satsuma  clan.  The  vessel  was  then  compelled  to 
return  to  Macao,  without  having  effected  a  moment's  landing 
or  having  in  any  way  communicated  with  the  Japanese. 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  481 

The  failure  of  this  enterprise  discouraged  further  attempts 
in  that  direction  until  1845.  In  that  year  Captain  Cooper,  of 
Sag  Harbor,  New  York,  with  his  ship  Manhattan,  found  eleven 
shipwrecked  Japanese  on  a  barren  island  in  the  Pacific,  and 
rescued  eleven  more  from  a  foundering  junk.  With  these  he 
sailed  to  Yeddo,  purposing  there  to  return  them  to  their  homes 
and  "to  impress  the  Japanese  government  with  the  civilization 
of  the  United  States  and  its  friendly  disposition  toward  the  em 
peror  and  the  Japanese  people."  Before  reaching  Yeddo  he 
sent  messengers  forward  to  inform  the  Government  of  his  ap 
proach  and  his  purpose,  and  in  consequence  he  was  permitted  to 
enter  the  Bay  of  Yeddo  and  to  anchor  near  that  city.  His 
vessel  was,  however,  surrounded  by  a  cordon  of  Japanese  boats 
and  a  guard  of  military  officers  was  put  aboard;  and  he  was 
warned  that  none  of  his  company  must  go  ashore,  under  pain 
of  death.  He  was  permitted  to  remain  there  a  few  days  and  to 
secure  fresh  supplies  of  food  and  water,  "because  the  emperor 
felt  assured  that  he  could  not  be  a  bad-hearted  foreigner  by  his 
having  come  so  far  out  of  his  way  to  bring  poor  people  to  their 
native  country,  who  were  wholly  strangers  to  him."  But  he 
was  requested  not  to  do  it  again,  but  to  land  at  some  Dutch  port 
any  other  Japanese  castaways  whom  he  might  pick  up.  The 
emperor,  he  was  told,  would  rather  have  such  castaways  aban 
doned  and  lost  than  to  have  strangers  enter  Japan. 

Following  this  incident,  in  the  fall  of  1845,  a  resolution  was 
introduced  into  Congress  by  Zadok  Pratt,  a  representative  from 
New  York,  recommending  the  taking  of  steps  for  making  com 
mercial  treaties  with  Japan  and  Corea.  In  consequence  Com 
modore  Biddle,  commanding  the  American  squadron  in  the  East, 
was  directed  to  ascertain  what  ports  of  Japan  were  accessible 
to  foreigners,  and  to  assist  Mr.  Everett,  the  American  minister 
to  China,  who  was  also  accredited  to  Japan,  in  going  thither, 
if  he  should  be  inclined  to  make  the  attempt.  It  was  added  that 
if  Everett  shrank  from  the  mission,  Commodore  Biddle  might 
himself  undertake  it  if  he  wished.  Everett  did  shrink  from  it, 
and  transferred  his  credentials  to  Biddle,  who  undertook  the 
task.  He  reached  Yeddo  with  his  two  ships  on  July  20,  1846, 
and  was  received  much  as  Captain  Cooper  had  been  before  him. 
He  told  the  authorities — at  their  request,  in  writing — that  he 

VOL.  I — 31 


482  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

had  come  to  find  if  Japan  had  opened  her  ports  to  commerce 
and  was  willing  to  make  a  treaty  with  the  United  States.  A 
few  days  later  the  reply  came,  nominally  from  the  mikado,  but 
in  fact  from  the  shogun,  to  the  effect  that  Nagasaki  was  the  only 
port  open  to  foreigners,  that  no  treaty  would  be  made  with  the 
United  States,  and  that  Biddle  and  his  ships  must  leave  Yeddo 
at  once  and  never  return  to  Japan.  Either  by  intention  or 
accident  a  Japanese  soldier  jostled  heavily  against  Biddle  at  the 
moment  of  the  delivery  of  this  letter  to  him ;  an  act,  according 
to  Japanese  etiquette,  of  unspeakable  indignity.  An  apology 
was  made  by  the  Japanese  officers,  and  it  was  promised  that  the 
offender  should  be  punished,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  the 
promise  was  fulfilled.  On  the  contrary,  the  incident  inspired 
the  Japanese  with  a  certain  contempt  for  Americans,  as  people 
who  might  be  insulted  with  impunity. 

Biddle  then  left  Japan  and  returned  to  Macao.  The  report 
of  his  doings  was  made  to  the  state  department  by  Everett,  who 
took  an  unfavorable  view  of  the  whole  affair.  He  said  that  Bid- 
die  had  shown  lack  of  discretion,  and  had  left  matters  in  a  worse 
condition  than  that  in  which  he  found  them.  The  reply  of  the 
mikado  to  Biddle 's  request  he  considered  to  be  intentionally  in 
sulting,  as  it  was  without  address,  date,  or  signature.  It  should 
be  added  that  Biddle  had  been  expressly  forbidden,  in  his  in 
structions,  to  exercise  or  to  display  any  military  force  in  his 
intercourse  with  the  Japanese. 

The  next  year  news  came  that  the  crews  of  two  wrecked  Amer 
ican  vessels  were  being  harshly  treated  as  prisoners  in  Japan, 
in  striking  contrast  to  the  way  in  which  shipwrecked  Japanese 
had  been  treated  by  Americans.  Accordingly  the  American 
naval  commander  in  the  East  sent  Commander  Glynn,  with  the 
ship  Treble,  to  Nagasaki,  in  1849,  to  demand  redress.  Glynn 
defied  the  rules  requiring  foreign  vessels  to  stop  near  the  en 
trance  of  the  bay,  and  boldly  sailed  into  the  inner  harbor  and 
demanded  communication  with  the  governor.  The  result  was 
that  after  some  parley  the  Americans  were  delivered  to  him,  and 
he  sailed  away  in  triumph. 

The  sailors  who  were  thus  rescued  reported  that  they  had 
been  treated  with  monstrous  insults  and  cruelties,  in  consequence 
of  which  some  of  their  comrades  had  died.  Whether  this  was 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  483 

by  order  of  the  Japanese  government,  or  was  a  mere  excess  of 
zeal  of  some  of  its  subordinate  agents,  was  not  clear,  though 
the  latter  was  the  more  probable.  In  any  case,  the  experience 
of  these  men  roused  much  indignation,  and  contributed  to  the 
resolution  of  the  United  States  to  force  a  reckoning  with  Japan. 
Another  consideration  was,  the  frequenting  of  that  part  of 
the  Pacific  by  American  whalers.  These  went  thither  by  hun 
dreds,  cruising  within  sight  of  the  Japanese  coast,  and  it  was 
felt  to  be  a  hardship  that  they  could  not  enter  Japanese  har 
bors  for  supplies  or  for  refuge  in  case  of  distress.  A  third  was 
that,  with  the  acquisition  of  California,  the  discovery  of  gold, 
and  the  rapid  growth  of  that  State,  a  steamship  line  across  the 
Pacific  to  China  was  projected,  and  a  stopping  place  in  Japan 
was  deemed  necessary.  Accordingly,  President  Fillmore  gave 
close  attention  to  the  report  and  recommendations  of  Commo 
dore  Glynn,  suggesting  an  armed  expedition  to  Japan,  which 
would  compel  a  respectful  hearing.  Webster  was  now  secre 
tary  of  state  for  a  second  time,  and  he  also  took  a  deep  interest 
in  the  matter.  As  a  result  of  numerous  cabinet  councils,  the 
expedition  was  finally  decided  upon,  and  Commodore  Aulick 
was  appointed  to  the  command  of  the  East  India  naval  station 
in  order  to  undertake  the  momentous  mission.  On  June  10, 
1851,  the  President  wrote  a  letter  to  the  mikado,  which  Aulick 
was  to  deliver,  and  Webster  wrote  a  letter  of  instructions,  giv 
ing  Aulick  full  power  to  negotiate  a  treaty.  Thus  equipped, 
Aulick  set  out  for  Japan,  only  to  find,  on  reaching  Macao,  a 
letter  from  the  secretary  of  the  navy  recalling  him  from  the 
command. 

Commodore  Matthew  Calbraith  Perry  had  been  selected  to  re 
place  him,  and  the  choice  must  be  accounted  a  felicitous  one. 
He  was  the  son  of  an  officer  in  the  revolutionary  navy,  the 
brother  of  the  hero  of  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie,  and  himself  a 
naval  officer  of  approved  discretion  and  resolution;  realizing 
John  Paul  Jones's  theory,  that  a  naval  commander  should  be 
also  a  statesman  and  diplomat.  Perry  was  granted  ample  time 
in  which  to  make  his  preparations  and  full  power  to  select  his 
own  subordinates  for  probably  the  most  momentous  expedition 
ever  undertaken  by  the  American  navy.  Many  thousands  of 
dollars'  worth  of  books  on  Japan,  charts,  and  what  not  were 


484  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

secured  in  America  and  Europe,  and  interviews  were  had  with 
all  sea  captains  who  had  visited  Japanese  waters.  Elaboratejn- 
strnctions  were  prepared  by  the  state  department,  authoriz 
ing  him  to  secure  protection  and  succor  for  shipwrecked  Amer 
ican  sailors,  the  opening  of  Japanese  ports  to  vessels  in  need 
of  supplies,  and  the  opening  of  ports,  also,  for  commerce. 
These  instructions  were  drafted  chiefly  by  Webster,  but  he  died 
before  they  were  completed.  The  letter  from  the  President  to 
the  mikado  was  prepared  and  countersigned  by  Edward  Ever 
ett,  who  had  become  Webster's  successor  in  office.  The  instruc 
tions  were  widely  published  in  America  and  Europe,  and 
the  two  continents  watched  with  intense  interest  the  preparation 
and  departure  of  an  expedition  which  would,  if  it  succeeded,  be 
of  epoch-making  importance  to  the  whole  world.  Perry  fully 
appreciated  the  honor  and  the  responsibility  which  were  con 
ferred  upon  him,  and  comported  himself  appropriately.  The 
President  and  cabinet  bade  him  good  speed,  and  on  November 
24,  1852,  he  left  the  Capes  of  Virginia  on  his  momentous  voyage. 

Seeing  that  the  Dutch  had  an  establishment  at  Deshima,  just 
off  Nagasaki,  our  government  requested  their  good  offices  for 
facilitating  Perry's  reception  in  Japan.  The  Dutch  govern 
ment  promptly  acceded  to  the  request,  and  sent  instructions  to 
that  effect  to  the  officers  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Company; 
but  these  apparently  did  not  reach  Deshima  until  after  Perry 
had  fulfilled  his  mission.  It  has  been  stated,  also,  that  on  learn 
ing  of  the  first  preparations  for  Perry 's  mission  the  Dutch  them 
selves  attempted  to  forestall  him  by  making  a  treaty  with  Japan. 
If  so,  they  suffered  complete  failure. 

Perry  went  first  to  Macao,  where  he  took  into  his  company 
Dr.  S.  W.  Williams,  who  was  to  serve  as  chief  interpreter  for 
the  mission.  There,  too,  he  was  joined  by  several  vessels  of  the 
American  East  India  squadron,  so  that  he  approached  Japan 
with  by  far  the  most  impressive  and  formidable  fleet  that  had 
ever  been  seen  in  the  waters  of  that  empire.  His  flagship  was 
the  Susquehanna,  a  fine  new  steam  frigate,  the  first  steamship 
that  had  visited  Japan.  In  such  state  the  expedition,  on  the 
morning  of  July  8,  .1853,  entered  the  spacious  bay  of  Yeddo. 
With  all  sails  furled,  and  under  steam  power  alone,  the  ships 
kept  their  way  unchecked  amid  the  swarming  boats  and  junks 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  485 

of  the  Japanese,  disregarding  all  signals  and  commands  to  stop, 
until  they  were  just  off  Uraga,  where,  late  in  the  afternoon, 
they  stopped  and  cast  anchor.  The  appearance  of  these  strange 
vessels,  belching  forth  clouds  of  smoke  and  moving  swiftly  with 
out  sails  or  oars  against  both  wind  and  tide,  created  indescribable 
consternation  among  the  Japanese,  to  whom  they  seemed  a  ful 
filment  of  an  old  legend  about  the  "black  ships"  which  should 
come  from  afar  to  wreak  evil  upon  Japan.  Even  the  high  offi 
cials  regarded  them  with  wonder  and  apprehension.  When  the 
vessels  anchored,  one  of  the  neighboring  Japanese  forts  fired 
two  signal  guns  and  sent  up  a  rocket,  as  an  announcement  of 
the  arrival  of  the  portentous  invaders  whose  coming  had  been 
announced  by  the  Dutch  at  Deshima.  The  effect  was  electric 
throughout  the  whole  capital  city  of  Yeddo.  "The  popular 
commotion,"  said  a  native  writer,  "at  the  news  of  a  'foreign 
invasion'  was  beyond  description.  The  whole  city  was  in  an 
uproar.  In  all  directions  were  seen  mothers  flying  with  chil 
dren  in  their  arms,  and  men  with  mothers  on  their  backs.  Eu- 
mors  of  an  immediate  action,  exaggerated  each  time  they  were 
communicated  from  mouth  to  mouth,  added  horror  to  the  hor 
ror-stricken.  The  tramp  of  warhorses,  the  clatter  of  armed 
warriors,  the  noise  of  carts,  the  parade  of  firemen,  the  incessant 
tolling  of  bells,  the  shrieks  of  women,  the  cries  of  children, 
dinning  all  the  streets  of  a  city  of  more  than  a  million  souls, 
made  confusion  worse  confounded. ' ' 

Perry  at  once  adopted  toward  the  Japanese  an  attitude  of 
what  proved  to  be  extraordinary  diplomatic  efficiency.  The 
keynote  of  it  was  the  unquestionable  equality  of  the  United 
States  with  Japan,  and  therefore  the  equality  of  the  President 
with  the  emperor.  This  invested  his  own  mission,  and  indeed 
himself,  with  great  dignity.  Moreover,  he  was  there  not  to 
ask  favors  but  to  demand  rights  and,  if  need  be,  to  take  them 
by  force.  Thus  when  his  vessels,  on  anchoring,  were  at  once 
surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  boats  of  all  kinds,  nobody  was 
permitted  to  come  aboard  until  at  last  there  came  a  large  boat 
evidently  bearing  an  important  functionary.  Learning  that  this 
was  the  Vice-Governor  of  Uraga,  Perry  permitted  him  to  come 
aboard  the  flagship,  but  not  to  approach  himself  or  his  quar 
ters,  where  he  maintained  himself  in  almost  imperial  state  and 


486  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

seclusion.  One  of  Perry's  aides  was  commissioned  to  receive 
the  vice-governor,  and  to  tell  him  that  Perry  himself  could  be 
approached  by  nobody  save  some  prince  of  the  highest  rank 
who  stood  next  to  the  emperor;  that  the  mission  was  friendly, 
bearing  a  letter  from  the  President  to  the  emperor;  and  that 
Perry  expected  to  meet  one  of  the  highest  dignitaries  of  the 
empire  to  whom  he  could  entrust  the  letter  for  delivery.  The 
vice-governor  then  said  that  all  such  business  was  to  be  trans 
acted  only  at  Nagasaki,  and  that  the  fleet  must  at  once  leave 
the  sacred  waters  of  the  Bay  of  Yeddo  and  go  thither.  To 
this  the  reply  was  a  flat  refusal.  Perry  would  not  go  to  Na 
gasaki,  but  would  remain  at  Uraga.  Moreover,  he  would  ex 
pect  himself  and  his  vessels  to  be  treated  with  respect,  and  if 
the  Japanese  guard  boats  which  were  forming  a  cordon  about 
the  fleet  were  not  removed,  he  would  drive  them  away  by  force. 
At  this  the  vice-governor  departed,  and  the  guard  boats  went 
away  with  him. 

Next  day  the  Governor  of  Uraga  came,  asking  to  see  Perry, 
but  again  Perry  declined  to  meet  so  inferior  a  functionary,  and 
sent  one  of  his  subordinates  to  deal  with  him.  A  colloquy  sim 
ilar  to  that  of  the  day  before  ensued,  with  this  addition,  that 
the  governor  was  warned  that  if  a  sufficiently  exalted  digni 
tary  were  not  soon  sent  to  receive  the  President's  letter,  Perry 
himself  would  go  ashore  to  deliver  it,  accompanied  by  an  irre 
sistible  force.  The  governor  then  withdrew,  promising  to  come 
again  in  a  few  days  with  an  answer  from  the  imperial  court. 
Perry  then  set  about  to  improve  the  time  of  waiting  by  send 
ing  out  boats  to  make  soundings  and  to  survey  the  harbor.  The 
governor  sent  word  that  this  was  contrary  to  Japanese  law  and 
must  be  stopped.  Perry  sent  reply  that  it  was  according  to 
American  law  and  would  not  be  stopped ;  whereon  there  was  no 
further  interference  nor  protest. 

July  10  was  Sunday,  religious  services  were  held  on  the  ships, 
and  no  communication  was  held  with  the  Japanese.  The  next 
day  one  of  the  ships,  conveying  a  surveying  party,  moved  some 
distance  up  the  bay  toward  the  capital.  •  At"  this  the  governor 
came  aboard  to  expostulate,  but  was  told  that  the  ship  was 
seeking  anchorage  nearer  the  imperial  court,  for  the  much  larger 
fleet  which  would  presently  come  thither  if  the  President's  letter 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  487 

were  not  promptly  and  properly  received.  This  brought  the 
governor  to  terms  and  on  the  following  day  he  reported  that 
a  suitable  officer  would  be  designated  to  receive  the  letter  as 
soon  as  an  appropriate  place  could  be  prepared  on  shore  for 
the  ceremony;  but,  while  the  letter  would  be  received  there, 
the  answer  would  be  sent  to  Nagasaki,  whither  Perry  must  go 
to  get  it  through  one  of  the  Dutch  or  Chinese  superintendents. 
To  this  Perry  returned  in  writing  the  curt  and  peremptory 
reply  that  he  would  not  go  to  Nagasaki;  that  he  would  receive 
no  communications  through  Dutch  and  Chinese  agencies;  that 
he  would  deliver  the  President's  letter  to  the  emperor  him 
self  or  to  his  foreign  secretary,  and  to  nobody  else;  that  he 
would  expect  a  reply  of  some  sort  in  a  few  days,  to  be  given 
to  him  there,  at  Uraga;  and  finally  that  if  the  President's 
friendly  letter  to  the  emperor  were  not  received  in  a  proper 
manner,  he  would  consider  that  the  United  States  had  been  in 
sulted  and  would  not  answer  for  the  consequences. 

That  was  enough.  In  a  few  hours  the  governor  reported  that 
a  very  exalted  personage,  accredited  by  the  emperor,  would 
receive  Perry  ashore  the  next  day  but  one.  This  promise  was 
fulfilled,  and  on  the  morning  of  July  14  the  ceremony  occurred. 
The  American  ships  moved  close  to  the  meeting-place  which 
had  been  prepared.  The  governor  with  a  brilliant  retinue  came 
to  the  flagship  to  escort  Perry  ashore.  A  salute  was  fired  from 
all  the  ships,  and  Perry,  who  now  for  the  first  time  was  so 
much  as  seen  by  any  Japanese,  entered  a  decorated  barge  and 
went  ashore,  accompanied  by  about  three  hundred  officers  and 
men  and  two  bands  of  music,  two  stalwart  Negroes  as  a  body 
guard,  and  two  boys  bearing  the  golden  caskets  in  which  re 
posed  the  President's  letter  and  Perry's  own  credentials. 
Thousands  of  Japanese  troops  were  stationed  about  the  recep 
tion  hall  as  a  guard  of  honor.  In  the  hall  two  of  the  most 
illustrious  princes  of  the  empire  awaited  Perry  and  received 
him  with  respectful  obeisance.  The  boys  brought  forward  the 
golden  caskets,  which  were  opened  by  the  Negro  guards;  the 
letter  and  credentials,  richly  engrossed  on  vellum  and  bearing 
seals  and  chains  of  gold,  were  taken  out,  displayed  to  the 
princes,  and  laid  upon  the  lid  of  the  box  which  the  latter  had 
brought  for  their  reception ;  and  the  governor,  reverently  kneel- 


488  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

ing,  placed  them  within  the  box.  An  interpreter  from  the  fleet 
then  explained  to  a  Japanese  interpreter  the  purport  of  the 
documents.  The  governor  knelt  before  the  princes  and  received 
from  them  a  scroll,  which  he  transferred  to  Perry,  kneeling 
before  him  as  he  did  so.  This  was  a  receipt  for  the  documents, 
and  a  statement  that  nothing  further  could  be  done  there,  but 
that  the  fleet  must  at  once  go  to  Nagasaki,  where  it  would  in 
due  time  receive  an  answer.  "When  this  was  interpreted  to 
Perry  he  replied  that  he  would  indeed  go  away  in  a  few  days 
to  give  the  Japanese  government  time  to  consider  the  important 
business  in  hand;  but  he  would  not  go  to  Nagasaki,  but  would 
return  to  Uraga  the  next  spring,  and  would  then  and  there  ex 
pect  to  receive  the  emperor's  answer.  The  governor  asked  if 
he  would  come  back  with  all  these  vessels.  Perry  replied  that 
he  would,  and  probably  with  many  more,  as  these  were  only  a 
few  of  his  fleet. 

This  closed  the  interview,  and  the  Americans  returned  to  their 
ships  with  all  possible  dignity  and  state,  feeling  well  satisfied 
with  what  had  been  done.  The  wall  of  Japanese  reserve  had 
been  broken  down.  Perry  had  been  received  as  no  other  for 
eigner  had  been  for  centuries.  The  full  equality  of  the  United 
States  had  been  recognized,  and  direct  intercourse  with  the  em 
peror  's  personal  representatives  had  been  secured.  Moreover,  no 
^cause  of  offense  had  been  given  to  Japan.  There  had  been  no 
violence,  no  disorder  of  any  kind,  and  no  wrong  committed  to 
any  Japanese.  That  afternoon  the  squadron  weighed  anchor, 
but  instead  of  departing  steamed  some  miles  up  the  bay  to 
ward  Yeddo,  made  surveys,  and  took  soundings.  Perry  wrote 
a  letter  to  the  emperor,  telling  him  that  he  would  return  the 
next  spring.  And  then,  on  July  17,  the  fleet  departed  from 
Yeddo  and  from  Japan,  to  leave  the  imperial  government  free, 
without  appearance  of  coercion,  to  consider  the  momentous  mat 
ters  which  had  been  laid  before  it. 

Perry  went  back  to  Chinese  waters,  to  look  after  American 
interests  during  the  Tai-ping  rebellion  which  was  then  raging. 
The  Japanese  government  promptly  and  earnestly  addressed  it 
self  to  the  consideration  of  the  President's  letter  and  the  terms 
of  the  proposed  treaty.  At  the  same  time  all  possible  prepa 
rations  for  war  were  made,  the  millitary  leaders  advising  that 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  489 

the  American  proposals  be  rejected.  The  anxiety  and  concern 
of  the  government  and  nation  were  much  increased  by  the  ar 
rival  of  a  Russian  squadron  at  Nagasaki  that  fall,  with  de 
mands  for  a  treaty;  after  presenting  which  it  withdrew  to 
Shanghai  to  await  a  reply.  Learning  of  the  Russian  operations, 
and  also  of  the  sailing  of  a  French  squadron  from  Macao  for 
an  unknown  destination,  which  he  feared  might  be  Japan,  Perry 
prudently  decided  to  cut  short  his  stay  in  Chinese  waters  and 
to  return  to  Yeddo  somewhat  sooner  than  he  had  at  first  in 
tended.  On  his  way,  at  midwinter,  he  called  at  the  Loo-Choo 
Islands,  and  there  received  word  that  the  Emperor  of  Japan 
had  died,  and  that  the  Japanese  government  requested  that  both 
his  return  and  all  further  negotiations  might  be  postponed  until 
after  the  expiration  of  the  period  of  mourning.  He  sent  a  reply 
to  the  effect  that  while  he  profoundly  regretted  his  Majesty's  de 
mise,  he  was  sure  that  the  Japanese  government  would  not  on 
that  account  delay  the  establishment  of  a  friendly  understand 
ing  with  the  United  States. 

He  therefore  continued  his  voyage,  and  on  February  12,  1854, 
entered  the  Bay  of  Yeddo  with  ten  vessels,  or  more  than  twice 
as  many  as  on  his  former  visit.  This  time,  as  before,  he  ig 
nored  the  Japanese  boats  which  clustered  around  him,  and 
steamed  on,  not  merely  to  Uraga  but  to  a  point  twelve  miles  be 
yond.  There  he  pursued  his  former  policy,  delegating  subordi 
nates  to  meet  the  officials  who  called  upon  him,  and  reserving 
himself  for  intercourse  with  some  personal  representative  of  the 
emperor.  When  it  was  announced  to  him  that  the  emperor  had 
designated  a  place  in  the  outer  bay  for  the  conference,  and 
wished  him  to  remove  his  fleet  thither,  he  flatly  refused,  and  de 
clared  that  if  the  Japanese  would  not  treat  with  him  on  the 
shore  opposite  his  present  anchorage,  he  would  take  his  fleet 
right  on  to  Yeddo.  At  this  the  Japanese  yielded,  and  the  nego 
tiations  were  conducted  at  the  point  selected  by  Perry. 

The  conferences  finally  began  on  March  8,  at  the  site  of  the 
present  city  of  Yokohama.  The  Japanese  made  no  such  mili 
tary  display  as  before,  but  their  commission  was  composed  of 
five  princes  of  the  highest  rank.  Perry,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  accompanied  by  the  same  imposing  retinue  as  before,  and 
maintained  the  same  dignity  and  reserve.  The  reply  of  the 


490  AMERICA'S  FOEEIGN  RELATIONS 

emperor  to  the  President's  letter  was  presented  and  was  found 
to  be  largely  favorable.  A  few  days  later  Perry  delivered  with 
much  ceremony  the  numerous  and  costly  presents  which  had 
been  brought  for  the  emperor  and  other  officials,  and  later  still 
the  Japanese  gave  equally  rich  gifts  in  return,  for  everybody 
from  the  President  down  to  the  humblest  person  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  conference.  The  American  gifts  included  a  fully 
equipped  miniature  railroad,  a  telegraph  line,  and  a  steamboat, 
all  of  which  were  put  into  practical  operation,  to  the  great  as 
tonishment  and  edification  of  the  Japanese,  who  were  thus  for 
the  first  time  inspired  to  seek  the  adoption  of  the  arts  of  West 
ern  civilization. 

Meantime  the  negotiations  for  a  treaty  proceeded  amicably 
and  expeditiously,  and  on  March  31,  1854,  that  epoch-making 
instrument  was  completed  and  signed.  It  provided  for  the  pro 
tection  of  shipwrecked  sailors;  for  the  opening  of  two  more 
ports  in  addition  to  Nagasaki  for  foreign  commerce,  for  the  resi 
dence  of  a  consul  at  Shimoda,  which  was  the  open  port  nearest 
to  the  capital;  and  for  the  enjoyment  by  America  of  all  priv 
ileges  which  might  in  subsequent  treaties  be  granted  to  other 
nations.  This  was  about  all  that  Perry  had  hoped  to  secure, 
excepting  in  the  matter  of  commerce ;  he  having  at  first  aimed  at 
a  general  opening  of  all  Japan.  Throughout  the  "Western  world 
the  treaty  was  hailed  as  an  unsurpassed  triumph,  and  the  high 
est  credit  was  everywhere  given  to  Perry  for  the  diplomatic 
genius  which  he  had  exercised.  Nor  was  the  achievement  ap 
preciated  in  Japan  less  than  elsewhere.  The  Japanese  were 
quick  to  realize  the  enormous  benefits  which  would  accrue  to 
them  through  thus  entering  the  common  family  of  civilized  na 
tions.  When  ratifications  of  the  treaty  were  exchanged,  on 
February  21,  1855,  the  Japanese  commissioners  assured  Perry 
that  "his  name  would  live  forever  in  the  history  of  Japan." 
In  later  years  his  fame  and  honor  steadily  increased,  and  in 
1901  a  'stately  monument  was  erected  by  the  Japanese  nation 
—the  emperor  himself  subscribing  to  the  fund — on  the  spot 
where  Perry  first  landed  and  delivered  the  President's  letter, 
and  was  dedicated  with  imposing  ceremonies  to  the  memory  of 
the  great  commodore,  whose  visit  was  described  by  the  Japa 
nese  government  as  "the  most  memorable  event  in  our  annals 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  491 

— an  event  which  enabled  the  country  to  enter  upon  the  un 
precedented  era  of  national  ascendancy  in  which  we  are  now 
living. " 

Other  nations  quickly  showed  in  a  most  practical  way  their 
appreciation  of  the  importance  of  Perry's  work.  In  the  early 
fall  of  the  same  year  in  which  he  " opened"  Japan,  a  British 
admiral  entered  the  harbor  of  Nagasaki  with  his  squadron, 
seeking  a  similar  treaty,  which  was  made,  and  a  few  months 
later  Russia  and  Holland  successfully  followed  the  example. 
The  treaty  made  by  Perry  went  into  immediate  effect,  and  its 
results  were  marked.  In  fact,  its  terms  were  observed  by  the 
Japanese  even  before  the  exchange  of  ratifications.  A  fort 
night  after  Perry  had  left  Yeddo  an  American  clipper  ship 
entered  that  harbor  and  was  hospitably  received.  Soon  after 
the  exchange  of  ratifications  American  consuls  were  sent  to  the 
two  new  open  ports  of  Shimoda  and  Hakodate.  To  the  former 
place  Townsend  Harris  of  New  York  was  sent  as  consul-gen 
eral,  and  that  very  remarkable  man  had  there  a  most  memorable 
and  historical  career.  On  his  way  to  Japan  he  visited  Siam 
and  negotiated  a  new  treaty  with  that  country,  and  then,  on 
August  21,  1856,  arrived  at  Shimoda.  In  .his  journal  he  made 
this  entry:  "I  shall  be  the  first  recognized  agent  from  a  civ 
ilized  power  to  reside  in  Japan.  This  forms  an  epoch  in  my 
life,  and  may  be  the  beginning  of  a  new  order  of  things  in 
Japan.  I  hope  I  may  so  conduct  myself  that  I  may  have  hon 
orable  mention  in  the  histories  which  will  be  written  on  Japan 
and  its  future  destiny." 

That  noble  ambition  was  nobly  fulfilled.  At  first  Harris  met 
with  innumerable  difficulties .  and  obstacles,  but  with  almost  in 
finite  tact,  patience,  and  resolution  he  overcame  them  all.  He 
exercised  both  consular  and  diplomatic  functions,  and  on  June 
17,  1857,  he  signed  a  new  treaty,  correcting  some  misunder 
standings  which  had  arisen  concerning  Perry's  treaty,  and  giv 
ing  to  Americans  important  new  rights.  Harris  was  also  en 
trusted  with  the  transmission  of  a  letter  from  the  President 
to  the  emperor,  and  he  requested  permission  to  go  to  the  capital 
and  deliver  it  in  person.  This  was  an  unprecedented  demand, 
and  was  regarded  with  much  hesitation.  Finally,  however,  it 
was  granted;  probably  for  fear  that  otherwise  Perry's  fleet 


492  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

would  return  and  compel  it.  So  with  a  picturesque  retinue  of 
several  hundred  attendants  Harris  set  out  by  land  from  Shi- 
moda  for  Yeddo.  The  trip  took  a  week  for  its  accomplish 
ment,  the  populace  and  officials  lining  the  ''imperial  highway" 
as  the  novel  procession  passed,  reverently  saluting  the  envoy 
and  his  flag.  At  the  boundary  of  the  metropolitan  province 
an  attempt  was  made,  in  accordance  with  law,  to  examine  the 
visitor's  baggage;  but  Harris  objected,  and  insisted  upon  the 
general  principle  that  an  ambassador's  or  minister's  baggage 
must  be  exempt. 

He  reached  the  gates  of  Yeddo  on  Saturday,  and  the  Japa 
nese  expected  that  he  would  make  his  entry  the  next  day.  But 
he  declined.  He  had  always  consistently  refused  to  transact 
any  business  on  Sunday,  and  the  Japanese  had  come  to  under 
stand  and  respect  his  principles.  So  he  devoted  that  day,  the 
first  Sunday  in  Advent,  to  rest  and  religious  exercises,  himself 
reading  the  church  service  for  the  day  to  his  secretary,  who 
formed  the  whole  congregation.  The  next  day  he  entered 
Yeddo,  under  the  American  flag,  while  the  multitudes  looked 
on  in  wonder  at  the  unprecedented  occurrence.  A  few  days 
later  he  was  received  by  the  shogun,  or  tycoon,  who  stood  in 
lieu  of  the  mikado  as  the  actual  sovereign.  It  was  intimated  to 
him  that  he  should  prostrate  himself  before  the  shogun,  in  ac 
cordance  with  Japanese  custom;  but  he  not  only  refused  to  do 
so  but  declared  that  any  further  suggestion  of  the  kind  would 
be  regarded  by  him  as  an  insult.  At  the  interview  the  Japa 
nese  noblemen,  including  the  shogun 's  own  brothers,  crawled 
to  the  throne  on  their  hands  and  knees,  while  Harris  alone  of 
all  the  company  remained  erect,  and  merely  bowed  to  the  sov 
ereign,  as  he  would  have  done  to  the  President  of  the  United 
State  or  to  a  European  monarch. 

Having  thus  gained  self-respecting  access  to  the  presence  of 
the  shogun,  Harris  set  about  securing  for  foreign  ministers  the 
right  to  reside  at  the  imperial  capital,  and  also  the  fuller  open 
ing  of  Japan  to  commerce  and  travel.  For  months  his  confer 
ences  and  negotiations  continued,  during  which  time  he  was 
literally  teaching  the  statesmen  of  Japan  the  elements  of  po 
litical  economy  and  international  law.  They  asked  him  what 
were  the  rank  and  duties  of  a  minister;  what  was  international 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  493 

law;  what  were  open  ports;  and  innumerable  other  such  ques 
tions,  which  he  answered  in  the  manner  of  a  teacher  instructing 
his  pupils.  He  was  doubtless  assisted  in  his  efforts  by  the  fact 
that  at  this  time  Great  Britain  and  France  were  waging  war 
upon  China,  and  it  was  anticipated  that  as  soon  as  they  had 
completed  their  victory  they  would  send  their  fleets  to  Japan  to 
exact  new  treaties.  So  the  Japanese  government,  under  the  lead 
ership  of  Prince  li-Kamon,  decided  to  forestall  them  by  making 
a  treaty  with  the  United  States. 

This  convention  was  signed  by  Harris  on  July  29,  1858.  It 
provided  for  the  residence  of  ministers  at  the  capital,  and  of 
consuls  at  all  open  ports;  it  opened  additonal  ports,  authorized 
general  commerce,  established  a  tariff  and  trade  regulations,  and 
fixed  the  Japanese  value  of  American  coins.  Kesidence  of  un 
official  Americans  in  Japanese  cities  was  also  granted,  their  ex 
ercise  of  religious  freedom  was  guaranteed,  and  civil  and  crim 
inal  jurisdiction  over  them  was  given  to  their  consuls.  The 
principles  thus  established  were  so  broad  and  comprehensive  that 
for  the  succeeding  forty  years  they  formed  the  basis  of  Japan's 
relations  not  only  with  the  United  States  but  also  with  the  na 
tions  of  Europe.  A  few  weeks  later,  as  had  been  anticipated,  the 
British,  French,  and  Russian  fleets  came  flocking  to  the  Bay  of 
Yeddo,  in  quest  of  similar  treaties,  which  were  in  due  time  se 
cured. 

One  highly  interesting  feature  of  the  Harris  treaty  was  the 
provision  that  ratifications  of  it  should  be  exchanged  not  at 
Yeddo  but  at  Washington.  It  was  Harris's  shrewd  but  benevo 
lent  purpose  that,  just  as  the  first  foreign  mission  to  Japan  had 
been  from  America,  so  the  first  mission  which  Japan  sent  abroad 
should  be  to  America.  Before  this  could  be  done  it  was  neces 
sary  for  the  Japanese  government  to  modify  the  law  which  im 
posed  the  penalty  of  death  upon  any  Japanese  subject  who 
voluntarily  quitted  the  empire.  Then,  in  February,  1860,  a  mis 
sion  consisting  of  seventy-one  persons  departed  from  Japan  for 
America,  going  to  Washington  by  the  way  of  San  Francisco 
and  Panama.  These  visitors  were  cordially  and  gracefully  re 
ceived  in  America,  and  returned  home  filled  with  admiration  of 
what  they  had  seen,  and  with  ardent  desires  for  Japan's  adop 
tion  of  many  of  the  arts  of  American  civilization.  After  the 


494  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

exchange  of  ratifications,  Harris  was  appointed  the  first  Amer 
ican  minister  to  Japan,  and  he  remained  in  that  office  until  May, 
1862,  when,  to  the  great  regret  of  both  countries,  he  resigned  on 
account  of  impaired  health  and  advancing  years.  He  left  a 
name  and  fame  comparable  with  Perry's,  in  honorable  place  in 
the  annals  of  Japan. 

At  the  time  of  Harris's  mission  Japan  was  beginning  to  enter 
upon  the  throes  of  that  great  domestic  conflict  which  ulti 
mately  abolished  the  rule  of  the  shogun  and  restored  the  mikado 
to  actual  as  well  as  theoretical  sovereignty.  Many  disorders  oc 
curred,  which  in  January,  1861,  involved  the  murder  of  Harris's 
secretary,  Mr.  Heusken,  in  the  streets  of  Yeddo,  and  in  1863 
the  burning  of  the  American  legation,  which  was  then  occupied 
by  Harris's  successor,  R.  H.  Pruyn.  Other  foreigners  and  for 
eign  legations  suffered  similar  outrages,  and  all  foreign  minis 
ters  but  the  American  fled  to  Yokohama  and  sought  the  protec 
tion  of  their  ships  of  war.  Pruyn,  however,  persisted  in  re 
maining  at  Yeddo.  He  simply  moved  into  another  house  and 
demanded  indemnity  for  the  injuries  which  had  been  done.  The 
Government,  however,  informed  him  that  it  could  not  guaran 
tee  his  safety  from  the  anti-foreign  mob,  and  accordingly  it 
escorted  him  with  a  strong  force  to  Yokohama.  He  exacted  from 
the  shogun 's  government  an  indemnity  of  $10,000  for  the  mur 
der  of  Heusken,  a  like  sum  for  the  destruction  of  the  legation, 
and  other  indemnities  for  other  wrongs  to  Americans.  In  these 
transactions  he  recognized,  however,  that  the  Japanese  govern 
ment  was  much  embarrassed  by  the  mob  which  was  rebelling 
against  its  authority,  and  he  maintained  relations  with  it  of  so 
friendly  a  nature  as  to  provoke  other  foreign  ministers  unjustly 
to  suspect  him  of  complicity  with  it  against  them ! 

The  rising  power  of  the  mikado  and  his  supporters  presently 
compelled  the  shogun,  for  the  first  time  in  several  centuries,  to 
go  to  the  mikado's  secluded  capital,  Kioto,  and  there  take  or 
ders  from  the  titular  emperor.  As  a  result,  a  decree  was  is 
sued  that  all  foreigners  should  be  driven  out  of  Japan  and  the 
ports  be  closed  against  them,  as  of  old.  When  this  was  made 
known  to  Pruyn,  he  refused  to  recognize  it  as  valid.  The  rights 
of  entrance,  residence,  and  trade  had  been  granted  to  American 
citizens  by  treaty,  he  said,  and  they  would  not  and  could  not 


THE  OPENING  OF  JAPAN  495 

be  relinquished.  The  very  suggestion  of  such  a  thing  was  an 
insult  to  America  and  might  well  be  considered  equivalent  to  a 
declaration  of  war.  If  persisted  in,  it  would  certainly  mean 
war  between  Japan  and  all  the  treaty  powers.  Although  Pruyn 
had  been  more  friendly  with  the  Government  than  any  other 
foreign  minister,  he  now  made  it  plain,  with  the  authority  of  the 
secretary  of  state,  William  H.  Seward,  that  the  United  States 
would  stand  with  the  other  powers  in  insisting  upon  loyal  ob 
servance  of  the  treaties.  It  was  recognized  that  this  was  tanta 
mount  to  committing  this  country  to  cooperation  and  practical 
alliance  with  European  powers,  a  procedure  contrary  to  its  estab 
lished  policy,  but  it  was  felt  that  in  the  exceptional  circum 
stances  such  a  course  was  justifiable.  Ultimately,  Pruyn  single- 
handed  prevailed  upon  the  Japanese  government  to  withdraw  the 
offensive  decree. 

Another  menacing  complication  was  caused  by  the  rebellion 
of  the  Cho-Shiu  clan  against  the  shogun.  The  rebels  attempted 
to  close  against  all  vessels  the  Strait  of  Simonoseki,  between 
the  Inland  Sea  of  Japan  and  the  China  Seas,  and  when  an 
American  merchant  vessel  tried  to  pass  through  it  was  fired  upon. 
News  of  this  was  despatched  to  Yokohama,  and  the  American 
warship  Wyoming  was,  at  Pruyn 's  request,  sent  to  the  scene. 
It  was  also  fired  upon,  whereupon  it  returned  the  fire,  sunk  one 
vessel,  damaged  two  others,  and  engaged  the  land  batteries; 
suffering  a  loss  of  four  men  killed  and  seven  wounded.  As  ves 
sels  of  other  nations  had  also  been  fired  upon,  a  conference  of 
ministers  was  held,  at  which  it  was  decided  to  send  an  inter 
national  expedition  to  open  the  strait  if  Japan  herself  did  not 
do  it  within  twenty  days.  The  shogun  would  or  could  do  noth 
ing,  and  so  the  expedition  was  sent.  It  was  comprised  of  nine 
British  ships,  four  Dutch,  three  French,  and  one  American,  the 
Civil  "War  in  the  United  States  requiring  the  presence  of  the 
American  navy  there  and  leaving  only  a  single  vessel  in  Japa 
nese  waters.  This  expedition  fought  the  Cho-Shiu  forts  and  ves 
sels  for  three  days  early  in  September,  1863,  and  compelled  the 
reopening  of  the  strait.  An  indemnity  of  $3,000,000  was  ex 
acted  from  the  shogun,  and  was  divided  among  the  four  pow 
ers.  The  American  government  and  people  looked,  however, 
with  disfavor  upon  this  exaction,  in  such  circumstances,  and 


496  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

after  holding  it  in  the  Treasury  untouched  for  twenty  years 
the  United  States  returned  its  share  of  the  indemnity  to  Japan, 
as  an  act  of  justice  and  friendship. 

These  incidents  further  weakened  the  declining  power  of  the 
shogun,  and  finally  he  acceded,  in  1865,  to  the  urgings  of  Pruyn 
and  the  other  ministers,  that  he  should  go  to  Kioto  and  secure 
the  mikado's  formal  approval  of  the  treaties,  all  of  which  had 
thus  far  been  made  only  by  the  shogun.  After  this  was  done, 
the  people  generally  treated  foreigners  with  much  more  respect, 
and  there  was  no  more  talk  of  annulling  the  treaties.  In  1866 
Pruyn  retired  and  was  succeeded  by  R.  B.  Van  Valkenburg. 
In  the  next  two  years  the  rule  of  the  shogun  was  finally  and  com 
pletely  ended,  and  the  mikado,  Mutsu  Hito,  became  the  one 
actual  sovereign,  removing  his  capital  from  Kioto  to  Yeddo, 
which  thereafter  was  known  as  Tokio.  In  1867  and  1868  an 
attempt  was  made  to  revive  a  law  of  centuries  before,  prohibiting 
Christianity  in  Japan.  Van  Valkenburg  called  the  other  minis 
ters  together,  and  a  strongly  worded  protest  was  made,  which  was 
effective  for  the  revocation  of  all  laws  against  Christianity  and 
the  establishment  of  religious  freedom. 


XIX 

EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII 

WHILE  relations  were  being  cultivated  with  the  great  na 
tions  on  the  Asian  rim  of  the  Pacific,  they  were  also 
growing  up  in  an  interesting  manner  with  an  isolated  people 
in  the  midst  of  that  ocean.  The  first  discovery  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  was  probably  made  by  Spanish  voyagers  in  the  six 
teenth  century,  who  were  shipwrecked  there,  were  succored  and 
well  cared  for,  intermarried  among  the  natives,  and  spent  the 
remainder  of  their  lives  in  those  "summer  isles  of  Eden."  In 
1555  Juan  Gaetano  also  espied  the  group,  but  made  no  attempt 
at  conquest  or  settlement.  The  first  effective  discovery,  or  re 
discovery,  was  doubtless  that  of  Cook,  on  'January  18,  1778,  who 
named  the  islands  after  his  patron,  the  Earl  of  Sandwich.  It 
does  not  appear  that  he  attempted  to  claim  sovereignty  of  them 
for  the  British  crown,  however,  and  at  the  time  of  his  lamentable 
death  there  the  islands  were  quite  independent,  under  various 
tribal  princes.  A  few  years  later  they  were  made  a  single  king 
dom,  under  Kamehameha  I.  British  vessels  called  there  in  1786, 
and  so  did  the  French  navigator,  La  Perouse. 

It  was  in  1789  that  the  first  Americans  reached  those  islands, 
in  circumstances  not  pleasant  to  remember.  The  Eleanor,  Cap 
tain  Metcalfe,  and  the  Fair  American,  commanded  by  Metcalfe's 
son,  stopped  at  Maui  that  fall,  on  their  way  to  China.  One 
of  the  Eleanor's  boats  was  stolen  and  broken  up  by  the  natives, 
and  in  revenge  for  the  act  Metcalfe  a  few  days  later  lured  to 
the  waters  about  the  ship  many  canoes  filled  with  natives  flock 
ing  thither  for  purposes  of  trade,  and  then  fired  upon  them  with 
cannon  and  small  arms,  with  great  slaughter.  More  than  a 
hundred  innocent  people,  including  women  and  children,  were 
thus  killed.  Metcalfe  then  .sailed  away.  But  a  little  later  the 
Fair  American  was  surprised  and  captured  by  the  natives,  and 

all   aboard,   including   Metcalfe's  son,   were   killed,   save   two. 
VOL.  i—32  497 


498  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

These,  Isaac  Davis,  the  mate,  and  John  Young,  the  boatswain  of 
the  Eleanor,  were  held  as  prisoners.  But  they  were  so  kindly 
treated  that  they  presently  married  native  women,  became  chiefs, 
and  spent  the  rest  of  their  lives  on  the  islands,  teaching  the  na 
tives  many  of  the  arts  of  civilization. 

Thereafter  occasional  visits  were  made  to  the  islands  by  Amer 
icans  and  Europeans.  In  1792,  1793,  and  1794  the  British  ex 
plorer  Vancouver  visited  them,  and  introduced  to  the  islands 
for  the  first  time  cattle,  sheep,  oranges,  and  grapes.  To  Van 
couver  also  we  may  credit  the  first  implanting  there  of  the 
principles  of  Christianity.  So  highly  were  his  ministrations 
appreciated  that  on  February  21,  1794,  Kamehameha  I  held  a 
grand  council  of  his  chiefs  aboard  Vancouver's  ship,  Discovery, 
and  formally  placed  the  islands  under  the  protection  of  the 
British  crown ;  and  raised  and  saluted  the  British  flag  on  shore. 
Strange  to  say,  however,  this  act  was  never  ratified  by  the  British 
government,  which  thereafter  for  many  years  entirely  neglected 
the  islands. 

Baranoff,  the  great  Russian  governor  of  Alaska,  in  1809 
planned  the  founding  of  a  Russian  colony  in  Hawaii,  and  for  the 
next  half-dozen  years  visits  of  Russian  vessels  to  the  islands  were 
frequent.  At  Honolulu  a  small  fort  was  built,  the  Russian  flag 
was  raised  upon  it,  and  efforts  were  made  to  secure  a  commer 
cial  lease  of  the  islands;  which  was  not  successful.  Then,  on 
the  advice  of  John  Young,  the  former  boatswain  of  the  Eleanor, 
the  Hawaiians  themselves  built  a  fort,  of  coral  rock,  to  com 
mand  the  harbor  of  Honolulu,  and  equipped  it  with  cannon. 
The  Russians  were  then  requested  to  retire  from  the  islands, 
which  they  did;  their  aggressions  being  not  only  unsupported 
but  disavowed  by  their  own  government.  Thereafter  the  king 
dom  of  Kamehameha  I  was  undisturbed,  save  by  domestic  feuds, 
for  many  years.  Tribal  conflicts,  however,  were  frequent,  and 
increasing  commercial  intercourse  with  Europe  and  America 
brought  to  the  islands  more  of  the  vices  than  of  the  virtues 
of  civilization. 

American  commercial  relations  with  the  islands  were  begun 
at  an  early  date  by  the  same  enterprising  and  intrepid  voyagers 
who  established  our  title  to  the  Oregon  coast,  John  Ken^rick 
of  Wareham,  Massachusetts,  with  the  ship  Columbia,  and  Robert 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  499 

Gray  of  Boston,  with  the  sloop  Lady  Washington.  It  was  in 
1787  that  they  set  out  from  Boston,  upon  their  first  memorable 
voyage  to  the  Pacific,  on  which,  apart  from  their  other  important 
achievements,  they  visited  the  Hawaiian  Islands  and  began  a 
trade  with  them  in  sandal-wood  which  later  increased  to  great 
proportions.  On  their  return  to  Boston  in  the  summer  of  1790 
these  pioneers  were  received  as  though  they  were  great  con 
querors  returning  from  their  wars.  Bells,  banners,  cannon, 
the  cheers  of  the  multitude,  and  the  hospitality  of  the  governor 
of  the  State,  testified  to  the  appreciation  of  their  achievements ; 
and  conspicuous  among  these  festivities  was  a  stately  Hawaiian 
chief,  in  royal  attire,  who  had  accompanied  Captain  Gray  and 
who  was  the  first  of  his  race  to  visit  the  United  States.  A  few 
years  later  the  first  horse  ever  seen  on  the  islands  was  taken 
thither  from  Boston.  Others  followed,  from  the  California 
coast,  and  soon  the  islands  were  well  stocked  with  the  animals 
and  the  natives  became  expert  horsemen. 

Thereafter  commercial  intercourse  with  the  islands  steadily 
increased  and  Hawaii  became  a  regular  stopping  place  for 
American  vessels  bound  to  and  from  China.  This  was  partly 
because  of  the  advantageous  situation  of  the  group,  in  mid- 
Pacific,  and  partly  because  of  the  sandal-wood  trade.  That 
commodity  was  in  great  demand  in  China,  and  American  ves 
sels  found  it  profitable  to  call  at  the  islands  for  cargoes  of  it, 
which  they  cairied  to  China  and  there  exchanged  for  tea,  silk, 
porcelain,  and  the  other  commodities  of  Cathay.  Captain 
Kendrick,  indeed,  left  a  number  of  men  permanently  ashore  on 
the  islands,  to  promote  the  cultivation  and  gathering  of  the 
wood.  The  whale  fisheries  and  mother-of-pearl  trade  also  took 
many  American  vessels  to  those  waters  and  shores,  and  in  the 
first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing  for  as  many  as  fifty  American  vessels  to  be  seen  at  once 
in  and  about  the  harbor  of  Honolulu.  The  people  and  rulers 
of  the  islands  were  generally  most  hospitable  to  them,  partly 
because  of  their  naturally  amiable  disposition  and  partly  because 
of  the  rich  profits  which  they  derived  from  the  commerce. 

In  the  year  of  Baranoff's  first  designs  upon  Hawaii,  1809, 
American  interest  was  attracted  to  the  islands  in  a  peculiarly 
romantic  way,  and  a  train  of  incidents  was  started  which  had  a 


500  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

more  profound  effect  upon  the  people  of  the  isolated  kingdom 
than  anything  else  in  all  their  history.  The  story  runs  that  one 
day  a  strange,  brown  boy  was  found  seated  on  the  doorstep  of 
one  of  the  buildings  of  Yale  College,  at  New  Haven,  Connecti 
cut,  weeping  and  evidently  suffering  much  physical  and  mental 
distress.  In  broken  English  he  revealed  himself  to  be  Obookiah, 
the  son  of  a  Hawaiian  chief,  fourteen  years  old.  His  father, 
mother,  and  brother  had  been  butchered  before  his  eyes  in 
one  of  the  inter-tribal  conflicts  which  at  that  time  frequently 
raged  on  the  islands,  and  he  had  himself  narrowly  escaped  the 
same  fate.  "With  two  other  boys,  Hopu  and  Tamoree,  the  latter 
the  son  of  the  tributary  king  of  the  Island  of  Kauai,  he  had  made 
his  way  to  the  coast.  There  the  three  had  been  received  aboard 
an  American  vessel  and  brought  to  New  Haven. 

The  lad  was  renamed  Henry,  was  kindly  cared  for,  and  steps 
were  begun  for  his  education,  but  he  presently  fell  ill  and  died, 
from  the  results  of  the  privations  and  exposures  which  he  had 
suffered  during  his  flight.  Hopu  and  Tamoree  survived,  how 
ever,  and  so  did  another  refugee,  John  Honoree,  who  joined 
them.  The  three  received  the  best  education  which  New  Eng 
land  could  afford,  and  were  converted  to  Christianity,  and  ten 
years  after  their  arrival  here,  having  grown  to  manhood,  they 
desired  to  return  to  Hawaii,  to  take  the  lead  in  the  regenera 
tion  and  civilization  of  their  fellow  countrymen.  This  design 
aroused  much  interest  in  New  England,  and  a  company  of  four 
teen  men  and  women  decided  to  accompany  them.  These  com 
prised  two  clergymen,  a  teacher,  a  physician,  a  printer,  a  me 
chanic,  and  a  farmer.  Impressive  farewell  services  were  held 
in  the  historic  Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  and  on  October  23, 
1819,  the  expedition  sailed  from  Boston,  on  the  brig  Thaddeus, 
on  an  errand  of  nothing  less  than  epochal  importance. 

They  reached  Hawaii  in  the  following  March,  to  find  that 
Kamehameha  was  dead,  that  the  queen  regent  who  suc 
ceeded  him  had  abolished  idol-worship  and  other  pagan  prac 
tices,  and  that  the  islands  were  in  a  peculiarly  receptive  state 
for  the  implanting  of  Christianity  and  American  civilization. 
They  were  received  with  much  cordiality,  and  Samuel  Rug- 
gles,  the  teacher  among  them,  was  adopted  as  a  son  by  Tamoree 's 
father,  the  tributary  king  of  Kauai,  and  was  made  a  royal  chief. 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  501 

The  missionaries  devoted  themselves  not  merely  to  the  preach 
ing  of  Christianity  but  also  to  the  promotion  of  the  general  wel 
fare  of  the  people.  The  physician  healed  the  sick  and  taught 
the  people  how  to  care  for  their  health.  The  farmer  instructed 
them  in  agriculture.  The  mechanic  developed  various  industrial 
arts.  The  printer  set  up  a  printing  press  and  began  publishing 
text  books  and  other  works  in  the  native  language.  The  teacher 
organized  a  system  of  public  schools.  Other  missionaries,  on 
similar  errands,  followed  in  the  succeeding  years,  and  civiliza 
tion  made  more  rapid  advances  in  Hawaii  than  it  was  ever  known 
to  do  in  any  other  land  in  similar  circumstances.  Within  five 
years  Sunday  was  officially  adopted  as  a  holy  day,  and  im 
portant  decrees  for  the  moral  welfare  of  the  people  were  pro 
mulgated  and,  best  of  all,  were  earnestly  and  effectively  en 
forced.  Some  of  the  missionaries  themselves  engaged  in  com 
mercial  and  industrial  enterprises,  as  did  their  sons,  and  of 
course  they  were  followed  to  the  islands  by  many  men  who  had 
no  other  object  than  trade.  Thus  the  missionary  movement  had 
important  commercial  results.  But  the  fact  remains  that  it  was 
conceived  and  primarily  conducted  with  the  sole  view  of  achiev 
ing  the  moral  redemption  and  the  civilization  of  the  people  of 
the  islands,  with  an  unselfish  and  sincere  devotion  never  sur 
passed  in  the  history  of  the  world.  By  the  year  1828  there  were 
440  native  teachers  assisting  the  missionaries  in  their  work  and 
in  1840  the  insular  government  took  over  the  extensive  system 
of  schools  which  the  missionaries  had  founded,  as  a  national 
system  of  free  public  schools. 

The  importance  of  American  intercourse  with  the  islands  in 
early  years  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  in  the  six  years 
1836-41  three  hundred  and  fifty-eight  vessels  from  this  country 
called  at  Honolulu,  the  companies  of  which  were  estimated  to 
have  spent  an  average  of  probably  seven  hundred  dollars  each 
ashore,  a  total  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars.  In  the  same 
period  only  eighty-two  British  and  seven  French  ships  visited 
Honolulu.  The  other  ports  of  the  islands  were  less  frequented, 
.though  many  American  whalers  touched  at  Lahaina.  The  mag 
nitude  of  American  commercial  interests  in  the  islands,  and  the 
assured  prospect  of  further  growth  thereof,  prompted  our  gov 
ernment  on  September  19,  1820,  to  designate  John  C.  Jones  to 


502  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

reside  at  Honolulu  as  "agent  of  the  United  States  for  commerce 
and  seamen/'  practically  a  consul.  He  had  general  supervision 
of  American  affairs  in  the  islands,  and  made  reports  thereon 
to  the  department  of  state.  In  1823  he  was  succeeded  by 
Thomas  Crocker,  who  first  bore  the  title  of  consul.  It  is  of  in 
terest  to  recall  that  Crocker  went  to  the  islands  on  the  Boston 
ship  Paragon,  whose  second  officer  was  John  Dominis  of  Bos 
ton.  This  latter  officer  spent  much  time  ashore  at  Honolulu, 
and  he  and  his  family  cultivated  intimate  social  relations  with 
the  royal  family  and  the  chiefs;  and  years  later  his  son,  John  0. 
Dominis,  married  the  native  Princess  Lydia,  sister  of  David 
Kalakaua,  the  last  king  of  the  islands,  who  herself  succeeded 
him  as  Queen  Liliuokalani  and  who  was  the  last  sovereign  of 
Hawaii. 

Contact  with  visitors  from  other  lands  inspired  some  of  the 
principal  men  of  the  islands  with  a  desire  to  see  for  themselves 
something  of  the  rest  of  the  world;  among  them  the  king  him 
self,  Liholiho,  who  in  October,  1823,  with  his  queen  and  a  con 
siderable  retinue,  sailed  for  England  on  a  British  ship.  The 
royal  party  was  courteously  welcomed  by  King  George  IV, 
and  the  visit  would  probably  have  resulted  in  the  establishment 
of  particularly  close  relations  between  the  two  countries,  had 
not  both  the  Hawaiian  sovereigns  sickened  and  died  of  measles 
within  two  months  of  their  arrival  in  England.  Their  death 
caused  a  revolution  in  the  islands,  and  the  prime  minister 
eventually  became  king,  under  the  title  of  Kamehameha  III. 

During  this  revolutionary  period  American  interests  suffered 
somewhat  and  deserters  from  American  ships  fomented  trouble 
ashore,  so  that  the  Washington  government  deemed  it  desirable 
to  send  some  agent  thither  to  adjust  matters.  Commodore  Hull, 
commanding  the  fleet  in  the  Pacific,  then  at  Callao,  Peru,  re 
ceived  in  May,  1825,  orders  to  send  a  vessel  to  Honolulu  on  such 
a  mission,  and  he  accordingly  selected  the  ship  Peacock,  com 
manded  by  Captain  Thomas  ap  Catesby  Jones.  This  officer, 
invested  with  gwm-diploniatic  functions,  reached  Honololu  in 
the  fall  of  1826  and  soon  succeeded  in  settling  the  little  contro 
versies  which  had  arisen  and  in  ridding  both  the  natives  and 
the  American  settlers  of  annoyance.  He  did  more  than  that. 
Although  he  had  not  been  specially  directed  to  do  so  he  pro- 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  503 

ceeded  to  negotiate  with  the  Hawaiian  government  a  general 
treaty  of  friendship  and  commerce ;  the  first  ever  made  between 
Hawaii  and  any  other  country.  This  instrument  provided  for 
perpetual  peace  and  friendship  between  the  two  countries,  for 
the  protection  of  American  citizens  and  vessels  from  harm  dur 
ing  domestic  wars  in  the  islands,  for  the  proper  care  of  ship 
wrecked  crews,  for  the  protection  and  civil  rights  of  Americans 
in  the  islands,  for  the  prevention  of  desertion  from  American 
vessels  and  the  arrest  and  return  of  deserters,  for  the  promotion 
of  trade  between  the  two  countries,  and  for  the  establishment 
of  the  "most  favored  nation"  principle.  It  was  an  eminently 
just  and  beneficent  compact,  and  it  embodied  the  terms  on  which 
American  relations  with  the  islands  had  been  and  were  there 
after  conducted.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  United  States 
Senate  neglected  to  ratify  it,  and  it  therefore  never  became 
technically  effective,  and  the  distinction  and  advantage  of  being 
the  first  actually  to  establish  treaty  relations  with  Hawaii  were 
forfeited  by  the  United  States  in  favor  of  its  two  rivals.  For  a 
treaty  was  made  and  ratified  between  Hawaii  and  Great  Britain 
in  November,  1836,  and  another  was  made  with  France  in  1839, 
both  of  which,  like  that  of  Captain  Jones,  were  negotiated  by 
commanders  of  warships  invested  with  diplomatic  powers. 

It  is  a  lamentable  fact  to  record  that  while  American  mission 
aries,  as  already  related,  were  doing  much  for  the  moral  wel 
fare  and  civilization  of  the  islands,  and  the  insular  rulers  cor 
dially  seconded  their  efforts,  not  only  American  traders  but 
also  men  and  even  officers  of  the  United  States  navy  at  times 
exerted  violent  measures  for  the  discouragement  of  such  prog 
ress  and  for  the  degradation  of  the  people.  In  1825,  in  addition 
to  the  adoption  of  Sunday  as  a  day  of  divine  worship,  the 
Hawaiian  government  issued  a  decree  forbidding  native  women 
to  go  aboard  or  to  be  taken  aboard  ships  for  purposes  of  pros 
titution  ;  as  had  formerly  been  done  on  a  vast  and  demoralizing 
scale.  The  crews  of  various  British  and  American  whaling  and 
trading  vessels  attempted  in  a  riotous  fashion  to  compel  the 
restoration  of  the  former  immoral  and  criminal  practices,  but  it 
was  reserved  for  the  company  of  a  United  States  national  vessel 
to  engage  most  actively  in  that  infamous  work.  In  January, 
1826,  the  United  States  schooner  Dolphin,  commanded  by  Lieu- 


504  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

tenant  John  Percival,  entered  the  harbor  of  Honolulu,  and  re 
mained  several  weeks.  At  first  the  crew  was  orderly  and  the 
new  code  of  morals  was  respected.  But  one  Sunday  in  February 
a  number  of  the  men  went  ashore,  in  quest  of  native  women 
whom  they  might  take  back  to  the  vessel  with  them,  or  with 
whom  they  might  indulge  in  debaucheries  ashore.  Finding 
these  things  forbidden,  they  violently  invaded  the  house  of  one 
of  the  chiefs,  in  which  at  the  time  divine  worship  was  being 
conducted,  and  threatened  to  loot  and  destroy  it  if  they  were 
not  permitted  to  have  the  women.  The  authorities  appealed  to 
Lieutenant  Percival  to  restrain  his  men  from  their  lawlessness, 
but  he  instead  supported  the  men  and  by  dint  of  threats  com 
pelled  the  Hawaiian  authorities  to  permit  gross  violations  of 
the  law.  It  is  charitable  to  assume  that  he  took  this  course 
through  weakness,  feeling  unable  to  control  his  men^  However 
that  may  have  been,  the  effect  of  the  incident  was  pernicious, 
both  in  encouraging  lawlessness  and  immorality  and  in  creating 
suspicion  and  antagonism  toward  the  United  States. 

A  few  years  later,  indeed,  a  certain  attempt  at  reparation 
was  made  by  the  United  States  government.  President  Jackson 
had  presumably  heard  of  the  incident  of  the  Dolphin  and  of 
Percival's  evil  conduct,  and  in  1829  he  sent  Captain  Finch, 
with  the  United  States  ship  Vincennes,  to  Honolulu  on  an 
official  errand.  Finch  bore  numerous  costly  gifts  from  the  presi 
dent  to  the  king,  queen,  and  principal  chiefs,  and  a  letter  from 
the  secretary  of  the  navy,  in  which  occurred  this  significant  pas 
sage: 

"The  President  anxiously  hopes  that  peace  and  kindness  and 
justice  will  prevail  between  your  people  and  those  citizens  of 
the  United  States  who  visit  your  islands,  and  that  the  regula 
tions  of  your  Government  will  be  such  as  to  enforce  them  upon 
all.  Our  citizens  who  violate  your  laws,  or  interfere  with  your 
regulations,  violate  at  the  same  time  their  duty  to  their  own 
Government  and  country,  and  merit  censure  and  punishment." 

Finch  remained  at  Honolulu  for  several  weeks,  cultivating  the 
most  friendly  relations  with  the  Government  and  people,  seek 
ing  to  counteract  the  bad  effects  of  the  Dolphin  outrage,  and 
gathering  information  concerning  the  trade  and  resources  of  the 
islands. 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  505 

Two  years  later  serious  trouble  arose  in  the  islands  over  the 
conflicting  claims  of  rival  religious  organizations,  or  perhaps 
more  correctly  through  governmental  partiality  in  religious 
affairs.  The  British  consul,  Richard  Charleton,  had  ever  since 
his  appointment  some  years  before  manifested  intense  hostility 
toward  the  American  missionaries  and  their  works.  It  is  prob 
able  that  he  was  actuated  by  political  rather  than  religious  mo 
tives,  having  an  ambition  to  increase  British  influence  in  the 
islands  with  a  view  to  their  eventual  annexation  and  recognizing 
the  American  missionaries  to  be  the  most  formidable  obstacle  to 
such  schemes.  The  influence  of  the  Americans  was,  of  course, 
toward  republicanism  rather  than  monarchy,  and  toward  closer 
relations  of  all  kinds  with  the  United  States  rather  than  with 
Europe.  In  his  efforts  to  combat  these  influences,  Charleton 
resorted  to  religious  rivalries,  and  sought  the  introduction  of 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries,  who  would  build  up  an  organiza 
tion  antagonistic,  he  hoped,  to  that  of  the  New  England  Protes 
tants. 

In  this  campaign  Charleton  was  unexpectedly  aided  by  the 
machinations  of  a  French  adventurer  of  unsavory  antecedents, 
named  Rives,  who  had  been  a  menial  in  the  service  of  King 
Liholiho.  He  had  desired  to  go  to  England  with  that  monarch, 
and  when  his  request  was  refused  he  went  aboard  the  vessel  as 
a  stowaway.  When  the  ship  was  well  on  her  way  he  revealed 
his  presence ;  and  soon  regained  the  favor  of  the  king,  whom  he 
encouraged  in  his  vices  of  drinking  and  gambling.  Rives  man 
aged  to  involve  the  royal  party  in  some  unpleasant  episodes, 
as  a  result  of  which  he  was  dismissed  from  it,  and  went  to 
France  to  organize  commercial  speculations  for  the  Hawaiian 
trade.  He  was  also  instrumental  in  securing  the  sending  of 
seven  Jesuit  missionaries  to  the  islands  under  an  apostolic  pre 
fect,  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Bachelot.  These  missionaries  went  to  the 
islands  in  1826,  and  soon  found  themselves  regarded  with  dis 
favor  by  the  Hawaiian  government,  which  regarded  the  New 
England  Protestant  missionaries  as  its  best  friends  and  was 
therefore  inclined  to  be  hostile  to  any  religionists  who  differed 
from  them  in  faith.  Of  course  the  American  missionaries  did 
not  attempt  to  allay  this  official  hostility  toward  the  newcomers, 
and  the  outcome  was  that  in  April,  1831,  the  Jesuits  were  ex- 


506  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

pelled  from  the  islands,  and  went  to  San  Gabriel,  California. 
They  left  behind  them,  however,  converts  and  friends,  who  were 
treated  with  disfavor  if  not  with  actual  persecution  by  the  Gov 
ernment,  and  who  were  easily  made  the  tools  of  Charleton  in  his 
anti-American  campaign. 

The  friction  became  so  acute  that  in  August,  1832,  Commander 
Downes  was  sent  thither  with  the  United  States  ship  Potomac 
to  observe  the  state  of  affairs  and  to  do  what  he  could  for 
its  amelioration,  in  which  latter  he  succeeded  to  some  extent, 
though  for  some  years  thereafter  the  island  government  con 
tinued  to  discriminate  against  the  Jesuits  and  did  not  establish 
complete  religious  freedom  and  equality  until  1839.  The  net 
result  of  Charleton 's  machinations  was,  however,  the  coming 
thither  of  the  British  warship  Actceon,  under  the  command  of 
Lord  Edward  Russel,  and  the  making,  in  November,  1836,  of 
the  treaty  between  Hawaii  and  Great  Britain,  which  has  already 
been  referred  to.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Hawaiian  govern 
ment  was  partly  coerced  into  making  this  treaty  by  the  circum 
stance  that  the  guns  of  the  Actce-on  were  at  the  time  trained  upon 
Honolulu;  but  the  treaty  itself  was  an  entirely  proper  one; 
providing  chiefly  for  the  suitable  protection  of  British  subjects 
and  their  property  in  the  islands. 

It  was  in  somewhat  similar  fashion  that  the  French  treaty 
was  made  three  years  later.  In  July,  1839,  the  French  warship 
Artemise,  commanded  by  Captain  Laplace,  visited  the  islands, 
and,  under  a  practical  threat  of  hostilities,  required  the  making 
of  a  treaty  guaranteeing  religious  equality  and  permitting  the 
return  of  the  Jesuits.  By  strange  irony  the  French  commander 
at  the  same  time  extorted  a  second  treaty  permitting  the  im 
portation  of  intoxicating  liquors  into  the  islands,  a  provision 
which  worked  irreparable  mischief  upon  the  people.  With  in 
solence  which  should  have  been  intolerable,  and  which  should 
have  been  sharply  resented  by  our  Government,  the  French  cap 
tain  told  the  American  consul  that  he  would  better  not  encour 
age  the  king  to  resist  any  of  these  demands,  since  in  case  of 
hostilities  resulting  from  such  refusal  the  American  Protestant 
missionaries  would  be  treated  as  enemies  equally  with  the  na 
tives.  But  there  were  times  when  no  insult  or  humiliation  was 
too  great  for  the  American  official  maw  to  receive.  Following 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  507 

this  episode  Charleton  went  home  to  England  to  inform  his 
Government  of  the  state  of  affairs  and  to  suggest  to  it  that  the 
United  States  was  practically  a  negligible  quantity  and  that 
there  was  to  be  merely  a  scramble  between  Great  Britain  and 
France  for  the  possession  of  the  islands. 

Meanwhile  the  Hawaiian  government  was  striving  to  secure 
recognition  and  protection  from  the  United  States  and  other 
powers.  In  1836  the  Rev.  William  Richards,  one  of  the  Ameri 
can  missionaries,  had  visited  the  United  States  in  an  endeavor 
to  get  some  American  competent  and  willing  to  serve  the  king 
as  an  adviser  and  instructor  in  diplomacy  and  statecraft.  His 
efforts  were  unsuccessful,  but  in  1842  he  and  Timothy  Haalilio, 
an  educated  native,  visited  England,  France,  and  the  United 
States  successively,  asking  for  the  recognition  of  Hawaiian  in 
dependence,  which  had  never  yet  been  given  by  any  power.  On 
December  14  of  that  year  they  addressed  a  letter  to  the  secretary 
of  state,  giving  an  interesting  sketch  of  the  progress  which  the 
islands  had  made  toward  civilization,  and  making  an  earnest 
plea  for  such  recognition  as  would  assure  them  of  a  continued 
opportunity  to  work  out  their  national  destiny  undisturbed. 
They  said,  in  part: 

"Twenty-three  years  ago  the  nation  had  no  written  language 
and  no  characters  in  which  to  write  it.  The  language  had  never 
been  systematized  nor  reduced  to  any  kind  of  form.  The  people 
had  no  acquaintance  with  Christianity,  nor  with  the  valuable 
institutions  or  usages  of  civilized  life.  The  nation  had  no  fixed 
form  or  regulation  of  government,  except  as  they  were  dictated 
by  those  in  authority  or  who  might  by  any  means  acquire  power. 
The  right  of  property  was  not  acknowledged,  and  was,  therefore, 
but  partially  enjoyed.  There  were  no  courts  of  justice,  and  the 
will  of  the  chieftains  was  absolute.  The  property  of  foreigners 
had  no  protection  except  in  the  kind  disposition  of  individuals. 
But,  under  the  fostering  influence,  patronage,  and  care  of  his 
Majesty  and  of  his  predecessors,  the  language  has  been  reduced 
to  visible  and  systematized  form,  and  is  now  written  by  a  large 
and  respectable  portion  of  the  people.  Schools  have  been  estab 
lished  throughout  his  dominions,  and  are  supported  principally 
by  the  Government ;  and  there  are  but  few,  among  the  younger 
people,  who  are  unable  to  read.  They  have  now,  in  their  own 


508  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

language,  a  library  embracing  a  considerable  variety  of  books 
on  a  variety  of  subjects,  including  the  Holy  Scriptures,  works 
on  natural  history,  civil  history,  church  history,  geography,  po 
litical  economy,  mathematics,  and  statute  law,  besides  a  number 
of  elementary  books.  A  regular  monarcKical  government  has 
been  organized,  of  a  limited  and  representative  character.  .  .  . 
It  has,  moreover,  been  the  uniform  practice  of  consuls  and  com 
mercial  agents,  resident  in  his  Majesty's  dominions,  to  demand 
all  that  protection,  both  of  persons  and  property,  which  is  de 
manded  of  sovereign  and  independent  States;  and  this,  his 
Majesty  believes,  has  been  duly  and  efficiently  extended.  "While, 
therefore,  all  is  demanded  of  his  Government,  and  all  is  ren 
dered  by  it  which  is  demanded  of  or  rendered  by  the  Govern 
ments  of  sovereign  and  independent  States,  he  feels  that  he  has 
a  right  to  expect  his  State  to  be  acknowledged  as  such,  and  thus 
be  formally  received  into  the  general  compact  of  sovereign  na 
tions." 

Fortunately  the  American  secretary  of  state  at  that  time  was 
Daniel  Webster,  who  had  the  prescience  and  the  courage  to  deal 
fittingly  with  the  case.  Five  days  after  the  receipt  of  this  com 
munication  he  replied  with  a  straightforward  and  sympathetic 
letter,  in  which  he  said: 

"The  United  States  have  regarded  the  existing  authorities 
in  the  Sandwich  Islands  as  a  government  suited  to  the  condi 
tion  of  the  people,  and  resting  on  their  own  choice;  and  the 
President  is  of  opinion  that  the  interests  of  all  commercial  na 
tions  require  that  that  Government  should  not  be  interfered  with 
by  foreign  powers.  Of  the  vessels  which  visit  the  islands,  it  is 
known  that  the  great  majority  belong  to  the  United  States. 
The  United  States,  therefore,  are  more  interested  in  the  fate  of 
the  islands  and  of  their  Government  than  any  other  nation  can 
be;  and  this  consideration  induces  the  President  to  be  quite 
willing  to  declare,  as  the  sense  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  that  the  Government  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  ought  to  be 
respected;  that  no  power  ought  either  to  take  possession  of  the 
islands  as  a  conquest  or  for  the  purpose  of  colonization,  and 
that  no  power  ought  to  seek  for  any  undue  control  over  the 
existing  Government,  or  any  exclusive  privileges  or  preferences 
with  it  in  matters  of  commerce. ' ' 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  509 

Nor  was  this  the  extent  of  Webster's  interest  in  the  islands. 
He  laid  the  matter  before  the  President,  Tyler,  with  the  result 
that  the  latter  on  December  30  sent  to  Congress  a  special  mes 
sage  on  the  subject,  recommending  recognition  of  Hawaii  and  a 
practical  guarantee  of  its  independence.  He  said  in  the  course 
of  this  document: 

"It  cannot  but  be  in  conformity  with  the  interest  and  the 
wishes  of  the  Government  and  the  people  of  the  United  States 
that  this  community,  thus  existing  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  ex 
panse  of  ocean,  should  be  respected,  and  all  its  rights  strictly 
and  conscientiously  regarded.  And  this  must  also  be  the  true 
interest  of  all  other  commercial  States.  Far  remote  from  the 
dominions  of  European  powers,  its  growth  and  prosperity  as  an 
independent  State  may  yet  be  in  a  high  degree  useful  to  all 
whose  trade  is  extended  to  those  regions,  while  its  nearer  ap 
proach  to  this  continent  and  the  intercourse  which  American 
vessels  have  with  it,  such  vessels  constituting  five  sixths  of  all 
which  annually  visit  it,  could  not  but  create  dissatisfaction  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  at  any  attempt  by  another  power, 
should  such  an  attempt  be  threatened  or  feared,  to  take  posses 
sion  of  the  islands,  colonize  them,  and  subvert  the  native  Gov 
ernment.  Considering,  therefore,  that  the  United  States  possess 
so  very  large  a  share  in  the  intercourse  with  those  islands,  it  is 
deemed  not  unfit  to  make  the  declaration  that  their  Government 
seeks,  nevertheless,  no  peculiar  advantages,  no  exclusive  control 
over  the  Hawaiian  government,  but  is  content  with  its  inde 
pendent  existence,  and  anxiously  wishes  for  its  security  and 
prosperity.  Its  forbearance  in  this  respect,  under  the  circum 
stances  of  the  very  large  intercourse  which  American  vessels 
have  with  the  islands,  would  justify  this  Government,  should 
events  hereafter  arise  to  require  it,  in  making  a  decided  re 
monstrance  against  the  adoption  of  an  opposite  policy  by  any 
other  power.  Under  the  circumstances,  I  recommend  to  Con 
gress  to  provide  for  a  moderate  allowance,  to  be  made  out  of 
the  Treasury,  to  the  consul  residing  there,  that,  in  a  govern 
ment  so  new  and  a  country  so  remote,  American  citizens  may 
have  respectable  authority  to  which  to  apply  for  redress  in  case 
of  injury  to  their  persons  and  property,  and  to  whom  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  country  may  also  make  known  any  acts  com- 


510  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

mitted  by  American  citizens  of  which  it  may  think  it  has  a  right 
to  complain." 

The  one  weakness  of  the  attitude  thus  taken  by  our  Govern 
ment  was  in  its  failure  at  once  to  make  a  formal  treaty  with  the 
islands,  and  indeed  in  "Webster's  strange  statement  that  the 
President  did  not  see  the  need  of  any  formal  treaty  or  the  ap 
pointment  of  a  diplomatic  representative  at  that  time.  Perhaps 
if  the  President  had  known  what  was  at  that  very  moment  in 
preparation  he  would  have  thought  and  acted  differently. 

For  on  February  11,  1842,  only  a  few  weeks  after  the  Presi 
dent's  message  had  been  delivered  to  Congress,  the  British  war 
ship  Carysfort,  commanded  by  Sir  George  Paulet,  entered  Hono 
lulu  harbor.  It  had  come  to  demand  satisfaction  for  a  claim 
which  Charleton  had  preferred  against  the  Government.  Cer 
tain  lands  to  which  he  had  title  had  been  attached  in  some  legal 
proceedings.  No  execution  was  issued  against  them,  but  notice 
was  given  that  until  the  legal  proceedings  were  ended  the  lands 
could  not  be  transferred  to  any  other  owner.  Charleton  pro 
tested  that  this  was  an  infringement  of  his  rights  as  a  British 
subject,  and  on  this  ground  secured  the  sending  of  this  ship. 
Immediately  upon  anchoring  Paulet  sent  to  the  Governor  of  the 
Island  of  Oahu  a  curt  message,  demanding  an  interview  with 
the  king  in  person,  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  repeated  insults 
which,  he  said,  British  subjects  had  received  from  the  Hawaiian 
government.  The  king  was  then  absent,  on  the  Island  of  Maui, 
but  five  days  later  he  returned  to  Honolulu,  whereupon  Paulet 
wrote  directly  to  him,  again  demanding  an  interview.  The  king 
sent  his  personal  representative,  Dr.  George  P.  Judd,  to  see 
Paulet,  but  the  latter  insultingly  rejected  him,  and  then  ex 
plicitly  threatened  to  attack  the  city  at  four  o'clock  P.M.  the 
next  day,  if  the  king  had  not  complied  with  his  demands  before 
that  time. 

The  demands  in  question  were  that  the  attachment  should  be 
removed  from  Charleton  7s  lands,  that  reparation  should  be  made 
to  Charleton  for  alleged  losses  which  in  fact  he  had  not  suffered, 
that  a  man  named  Simpson  should  be  recognized  as  consul  in 
Charleton 's  place  on  the  mere  strength  of  Charleton 's  personal 
designation  of  him,  that  a  new  trial  should  be  granted  to  one 
Henry  Skinner  who  claimed  that  he  had  been  improperly  con- 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  511 

victed,  that  no  British  subject  should  be  put  in  irons  unless 
charged  with  a  crime  which  would  warrant  such  treatment  under 
British  law,  and  that  British  subjects  should  be  tried  by  juries 
one  half  of  the  members  of  which  should  be  British  subjects 
approved  by  the  consul.  Some  of  these  demands  were  wholly 
unreasonable,  while  the  manner  in  which  they  were  made  and 
the  threat  with  which  they  were  accompanied  were  quite  in 
excusable.  It  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  supposition  that  Paulet 
was  deliberately  seeking  to  "rush"  the  islands  and  to  annex 
them  by  force  to  the  British  Empire.  The  king  realized  this. 
But  he  was  helpless.  He  had  no  means  of  resistance,  and  de 
fiance  would  mean  the  destruction  of  the  city  and  the  slaughter 
of  the  people.  There  was  every  reason  to  expect  that  Paulet  '& 
threat  would  be  fulfilled,  as  doubtless  it  would  have  been. 
There  seemed  nothing  to  do,  therefore,  but  to  yield  to  the  inevit 
able.  But  on  the  principle  that  death  was  better  than  dishonor, 
the  king  preferred  the  extinction  of  his  sovereignty  to  its  hu 
miliation  through  compliance  with  unjust  demands.  Instead, 
therefore,  of  complying  with  the  demands  he  announced  the 
surrender  of  his  sovereignty  and  the  cession  of  the  islands  to 
Great  Britain,  subject  to  whatever  terms  might  be  subsequently 
agreed  upon  between  his  commissioners  and  those  of  the  British 
government  appointed  for  the  purpose. 

This  was  really  shrewd  policy  on  the  part  of  the  king,  since 
it  gave  time  for  the  arrival  of  help  from  the  only  source  from 
which  it  could  be  secured.  At  the  moment  when  he  made  this 
extraordinary  act  of  cession,  therefore,  he  sent  an  account  of  the 
whole  matter  to  the  United  States  government,  where  Daniel 
Webster  was  still  secretary  of  state,  reminding  it  of  the  senti 
ments  which  had  been  expressed  by  Webster  and  by  the  Presi 
dent,  and  imploring  it  to  "interpose  the  high  influence  of  the 
United  States  with  the  court  of  England"  for  the  undoing  of  the 
great  wrong.  As  for  Paulet,  he  accepted  the  cession,  and  ap 
pointed  a  commission  for  the  provisional  government  of  the 
islands,  of  which  the  king  or  his  representative  was  to  be  a 
member,  the  others  being  British  subjects.  The  British  flag 
was  raised,  and  a  regiment  called  the  "Queen's  Own"  was  or 
ganized.  The  king  protested  against  some  of  these  acts,  and 
withdrew  from  the  commission,  but  the  others  continued  their 


512  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

rule  without  him.     Soon,  however,  something  was  heard  from 
headquarters. 

The  President  and  the  secretary  of  state  acted  promptly  on 
receipt  of  the  Hawaiian  appeal,  sending  instructions  to  Everett, 
the  minister  to  Great  Britain,  and  also  accrediting  to  him  some 
special  Hawaiian  commissioners  to  London,  to  protest  against 
Paulet's  act.  Everett  was  specially  prepared  for  the  business, 
for  the  reason  that  a  little  time  before  Webster  had  written  to 
him  about  Charleton's  performances  and  the  conduct  of  the 
French,  had  reminded  him  of  the  policy  already  set  forth  by 
the  President,  and  had  expressed  the  hope  that  Great  Britain 
and  France  would  adopt  a  pacific,  just,  and  conservative  course 
toward  the  Government  and  people  of  the  islands.  Acting 
promptly  on  the  basis  of  this  note,  Everett  had  secured  from 
the  British  government  the  assurance  that  the  independence 
of  the  islands  would  be  recognized,  and  also  the  information 
that  the  British  government  had  warned  France  that  no  en 
croachments  upon  the  islands  would  be  tolerated,  and  that 
France  had  replied  that  none  was  intended.  When,  therefore, 
the  news  reached  London  that  Paulet  had  practically  seized  the 
islands,  the  British  government  was  much  embarrassed,  and 
Everett  had  the  whiphand  of  it  in  demanding  that  it  should 
fulfil  the  assurances  which  it  had  recently  given  to  him.  To  its 
everlasting  credit  the  British  government  promptly  vindicated 
its  good  faith.  It  distinctly  disavowed  Paulet's  act,  both  to 
Everett  and  to  the  Hawaiian  commissioners,  and  renounced  the 
sovereignty  which  that  overzealous  officer  had  proclaimed.  It 
was  a  little  reluctant  to  do  the  latter,  not  on  principle  but  for 
prudential  reasons.  France  had  just  seized  the  Marquesas 
Islands  and  was  believed  to  have  despatched  an  expedition  to 
Hawaii  for  the  same  purpose  there,  and  it  was  suggested  that 
the  temporary  retention  of  British  sovereignty  would  be  the  best 
protection  of  the  islands  against  such  a  peril.  It  was  made  plain 
by  Everett,  however,  that  such  protection  would  not  be  neces 
sary,  and  accordingly  on  June  25,  1843,  the  British  minister  at 
Washington  formally  announced  that  his  Government  had  dis 
avowed  the  seizure  of  the  islands  and  had  renounced  sovereignty 
over  them.  On  July  11,  before  news  of  this  could  reach  the 
islands,  Commodore  Kearney  arrived  at  Honolulu  with  the 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  513 

United  States  frigate  Constellation,  and  made  a  formal  protest 
against  the  British  occupation  and  against  the  acts  of  Paulet's 
commissioners  so  far  as  they  affected  the  interests  of  American 
citizens.  But  twenty  days  later  Rear-Admiral  Thomas,  of  the 
British  navy,  arrived  with  the  man-of-war  Dublin,  hauled  down 
the  British  flag,  reraised  and  saluted  the  Hawaiian  flag,  and  re 
peated  the  formal  declaration  of  disavowal.  He  further  de 
clared  that  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain  recognized  Kamehameha 
as  the  legitimate  King  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  that  her  senti 
ments  toward  him  were  those  of  esteem  and  friendship,  and 
that  she  desired  him  to  be  treated  as  an  independent  sovereign. 

The  attitude  of  the  United  States  was  tersely  expressed  on 
June  13,  1843,  by  Legare,  the  acting  secretary  of  state,  in  a 
note  to  Everett,  in  which  he  said  that  "we  might  even  feel  justi 
fied,  consistently  with  our  principles,  in  interfering  by  force 
to  prevent  its  (the  Hawaiian  kingdom's)  falling  into  the  hands 
of  one  of  the  great  powers  of  Europe."  In  that  pithy  declara 
tion  the  United  States  applied  to  Hawaii  the  identical  policy 
which  many  years  before  had  been  enunciated  concerning 
Florida  and  Cuba,  if  not,  indeed,  concerning  Louisiana.  The 
attitude  which,  in  consequence,  was  assumed  by  the  British  and 
French  governments  was  unmistakably  set  forth  on  November 
28,  1843,  when  the  British  foreign  secretary  and  the  French  am 
bassador  in  London  signed  a  declaration  to  the  effect  that  those 
countries,  "taking  into  consideration  the  existence  in  the  Sand 
wich  Islands  of  a  government  capable  of  providing  for  the  regu 
larity  of  its  relations  with  foreign  nations,  have  thought  it  right 
to  engage,  reciprocally,  to  consider  the  Sandwich  Islands  as  an 
independent  State,  and  never  to  take  possession,  either  directly 
or  under  the  title  of  protectorate,  or  under  any  other  form,  of 
any  part  of  the  territory  of  which  they  are  composed." 

Concurrently  with  these  transactions  the  United  States  took 
the  long-delayed  step  of  establishing  regular  diplomatic  relations 
with  Hawaii.  In  pursuance  of  the  recommendations  in  the 
President's  special  message  of  the  preceding  December,  Con 
gress  provided  for  the  sending  of  a  "commissioner,"  who  was 
to  be  practically  a  minister,  to  the  islands,  and  on  March  3, 1843, 
George  Brown  of  Massachusetts  was  appointed  to  the  place.  He 
reached  Honolulu  in  the  following  October,  and  was  the  first 

VOL.  1—33 


514  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

such  envoy  ever  received  by  a  Hawaiian  king.  His  reception 
was  cordial,  the  king  and  people  feeling  grateful  to  the  United 
States  for  rescuing  them  from  British  aggression.  In  his  in 
troductory  address  to  the  king  he  expressed  the  hope  that  the 
friendship  between  the  two  countries  would  be  maintained  and 
strengthened;  to  which  the  king  replied  that  citizens  of  the 
United  States  would  always  receive  from  him  the  privileges  ac 
corded  to  those  of  the  most  favored  nation.  This  was  an  inter 
esting  assurance,  seeing  that  at  that  time  Hawaii  had  treaties 
with  Great  Britain  and  France  but  none  with  the  United  States. 
Unfortunately,  it  was  not  always  fulfilled.  Only  a  short  time 
afterward  an  American,  John  Wiley,  was  put  on  trial  for  some 
offense  at  Honolulu.  He  asked  to  be  tried  before  a  jury  of 
Americans  or  other  foreigners.  The  request  was  refused,  and 
he  appealed  to  Brown.  The  latter  repeated  the  request,  point 
ing  out  that  the  Hawaiian  treaty  with  France  provided  that  no 
Frenchman  should  be  tried  save  before  a  jury  composed  of  for 
eigners  approved  by  the  French  consul.  The  appeal  was  again 
denied,  and  Wiley  was  tried  before  a  jury  composed,  according 
to  Hawaiian  law,  half  of  foreigners  and  half  of  natives.  The 
verdict  was  against  him,  and  an  appeal  was  made.  While  it 
was  pending,  on  February  12,  1844,  a  treaty  was  made  with 
Great  Britain  which  contained  the  same  provision  concerning 
juries  as  that  with  France.  Despite  this,  and  in  the  face  of  the 
king's  promise  about  "most  favored  nation"  treatment,  the  ap 
peal  was  denied  on  the  ground  that  the  United  States  had  no 
treaty  stipulations  to  that  effect.  President  Tyler  approved  the 
contentions  of  Brown,  and  the  latter  then  proceeded  to  protest 
against  the  British-Hawaiian  treaty  on  the  ground  that  it  dis 
criminated  against  the  United  States.  At  this  the  king  asked 
the  United  States  to  recall  Brown,  as  no  longer  persona  grata. 

Anthony  Ten  Eyck  of  Michigan  was  appointed  in  his  place 
in  1845  and  was  duly  received,  though  he  did  not  succeed  in 
greatly  ingratiating  himself  at  the  Hawaiian  court.  Calhoun, 
who  had  become  secretary  of  state,  maintained  the  "most  favored 
nation"  claim,  even  in  the  absence  of  a  treaty,  but  instructed 
Ten  Eyck  to  seek  the  making  of  a  treaty  at  the  earliest  possible 
date.  This,  however,  he  was  not  able  to  do.  New  treaties  were 
made  by  Great  Britain  and  France  in  1846,  in  which  the  pro- 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  515 

visions  concerning  juries  were  materially  modified,  so  as  to  per 
mit  trial  before  mixed  juries,  according  to  Hawaiian  law. 
Despite  this,  Ten  Eyck  foolishly  persisted  in  demanding  a  treaty 
providing  for  juries  on  the  basis  of  the  former  and  then  abol 
ished  British  and  French  treaties.  This  naturally  offended 
the  Hawaiian  government,  and  it  came  near  to  requesting  Ten 
Eyck's  recall.  Indeed,  it  might  have  done  so  had  he  not  an 
ticipated  its  action  by  voluntarily  resigning,  in  September,  1848. 
He  remained  in  the  islands  about  a  year  longer,  awaiting  the 
coming  of  his  successor,  but  was  quite  ignored  by  the  United 
States  government.  He  afterward  wrote  and  forwarded  to 
Washington  a  letter  full  of  bitter  criticisms  of  the  President 
(Polk)  and  the  secretary  of  state  (Buchanan)  which  made 
their  further  recognition  of  him  practically  impossible.  His 
course  was  the  more  foolish  and  unfortunate  for  the  reason  that 
Buchanan,  while  he  warned  him  against  the  folly  of  his  jury 
policy,  strongly  supported  him  in  his  efforts  to  secure  some  sort 
of  treaty.  Indeed,  Buchanan  went  about  as  far  as  possible 
in  putting  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  Hawaiian  government, 
writing  to  Ten  Eyck,  on  August  28,  1848,  for  repetition  to  the 
Hawaiian  government,  as  follows: 

"The  President  has  learned  with  regret  and  astonishment  the 
probable  refusal  of  the  Hawaiian  government  to  conclude  a 
treaty  with  the  United  States  upon  the  terms  of  the  treaty  with 
Great  Britain.  He  entertains  the  hope  that  this  may  not  be 
their  final  determination.  If  it  should  be,  he  will  be  compelled 
to  consider  it  as  evidence  of  a  want  of  friendly  feeling  toward 
this  Government.  .  .  .  This  Government,  having  .  .  .  pledged 
itself  to  accord  to  that  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  a  sovereign  State,  cannot  in  honor  and  justice  de 
mand  from  it  anything  which,  under  like  circumstances,  it  would 
not  demand  from  the  most  powerful  nations.  I  can  discover 
nothing  that  would  justify  this  Government  in  objecting  to  the 
decisions  of  the  Hawaiian  courts  in  ordinary  cases  arising  under 
the  municipal  laws  of  the  country  or  in  dictating  the  policy 
which  that  Government  should  pursue  upon  any  domestic  sub 
ject,  and  especially  that  of  the  tenure  of  real  estate  by  resident 
foreigners.  .  .  .  We  ardently  desire  that  the  Hawaiian  Islands 
may  maintain  their  independence.  It  would  be  highly  injurious 


516  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

to  our  interests,  if,  tempted  by  their  weakness,  they  should  be 
seized  by  Great  Britain  or  France;  more  especially  so  since 
our  recent  acquisitions  from  Mexico  on  the  Pacific  Ocean." 

The  most  serious  crisis  of  all  thus  far  in  Hawaiian  history 
came  in  1849.  At  the  beginning  of  that  year  Charles  Eames 
of  New  York  was  appointed  United  States  commissioner  in 
Hawaii,  but  did  not  go  thither  for  some  time;  J.  Turrill,  the 
American  consul  at  Honolulu,  in  the  interim  filling  his  place,  as 
he  had  done  ever  since  the  resignation  of  Ten  Eyck.  On  August 
13  two  French  warships,  commanded  by  Rear- Admiral  Trome- 
lin,  entered  the  harbor  of  Honolulu,  and  some  extraordinary  de 
mands,  coupled  with  threats,  were  presented  to  the  Hawaiian 
government,  on  the  pretext  that  it  had  wantonly  violated  certain 
provisions  of  the  treaty  with  France.  The  American  consul  was 
informed  by  the  French  commander  that  no  conquest,  occupation, 
or  protectorate  was  contemplated,  but  merely  redress  of  griev 
ances,  and  he  was  assured  that  in  case  of  trouble  the  property 
of  Americans  would  be  respected  and  protected.  Turrill,  how 
ever,  protested  against  the  proceedings,  and  in  so  doing  was 
supported  by  the  British  and  all  other  consuls.  Tromelin  ig 
nored  the  protests,  and  when  the  king  failed  to  comply  with  his 
demands,  landed  a  company  of  marines,  and  took  forcible  pos 
session  of  the  fort,  custom  house  and  other  government  build 
ings,  and  a  number  of  vessels.  The  Hawaiian  flag  was  not 
hauled  down,  nor  that  of  France  raised,  but  the  buildings  were 
held  for  five  days,  and  much  public  property  was  damaged  and 
destroyed.  No  resistance  was  offered  by  the  king,  but  he 
commissioned  James  Jackson  Jarves,  an  American  resident  of 
Honolulu,  to  solicit  the  friendly  mediation  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  George  R.  Judd,  who  had  already  served 
as  the  king's  representative,  was  a  little  later  appointed  as 
Jarves 's  colleague,  with  instructions  to  enlist  also  the  attention 
of  the  British  government.  President  Fillmore  readily  complied 
with  the  request,  and  negotiations  were  begun  to  secure  the 
joint  intervention  of  Great  Britain.  While  these  were  slowly 
proceeding,  with  little  promise  of  success,  a  highly  important 
achievement  was  effected,  in  the  negotiation  and  ratification  of 
the  long-desired  treaty  between  Hawaii  and  the  United  States. 
This  was  done  at  "Washington,  on  December  20,  1849,  by  John 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  517 

M.  Clayton,  secretary  of  state,  and  J.  J.  Jarves,  the  Hawaiian 
commissioner.  It  was  a  treaty  of  friendship,  commerce,  naviga 
tion,  and  extradition.  It  was  ratified  on  February  4,  1850,  and 
was  proclaimed  on  November  9  of  that  year.  Thus  for  the  first 
time  the  treaty  relations  which  Captain  ap  Catesby  Jones  had 
sought  nearly  thirty  years  before  were  secured. 

The  French  crisis  remained,  however,  not  only  unsettled  but 
increasingly  menacing.  In  July,  1850,  Clayton,  as  secretary  of 
state,  felt  constrained  vigorously  to  reassert  the  attitude  of  the 
United  States  as  follows,  in  a  note  to  Rives,  the  American  minis 
ter  to  France : 

1  ( The  Department  will  be  slow  to  believe  that  the  French  have 
any  intention  to  adopt  with  reference  to  the  Sandwich  Islands 
the  same  policy  which  they  have  pursued  in  regard  to  Tahiti. 
If,  however,  in  your  judgment,  it  should  be  warranted  by  cir 
cumstances,  you  may  take  a  proper  opportunity  to  intimate  to 
the  minister  for  foreign  affairs  of  France  that  the  situation 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands  in  respect  to  our  possessions  on  the 
Pacific,  and  the  bonds,  commercial  and  of  other  descriptions, 
between  them  and  the  United  States  are  such  that  we  could  never 
with  indifference  allow  them  to  pass  under  the  dominion  or  ex 
clusive  control  of  any  other  power.  We  do  not  ourselves  covet 
sovereignty  over  them.  We  would  be  content  that  they  should 
remain  under  their  present  rulers,  who,  we  believe,  are  disposed 
to  be  just  and  impartial  in  their  dealings  with  all  nations." 

The  conduct  of  the  French  became,  however,  more  and  more 
aggressive  and  menacing,  with  the  result  that  in  March,  1851, 
King  Kamehameha  resolved  upon  the  extraordinary  course  of 
placing  the  islands  under  the  protection,  temporary  or  per 
manent,  of  the  United  States.  On  March  10  he  signed  a  decree 
to  that  effect,  to  take  effect  upon  its  publication.  In  this  unique 
document  he  declared  his  despair  of  obtaining  justice  and  equity 
from  France,  and  his  intention  of  placing  all  his  possessions 
under  the  protection  and  safeguard  of  the  United  States  until 
some  arrangement  could  be  made  with  France  compatible  with 
his  rights  as  an  independent  sovereign  and  with  his  treaty  en 
gagements  with  other  nations;  or,  if  such  arrangements  were 
found  impossible,  under  the  perpetual  protection  of  this  coun 
try.  It  may  be  added  that  this  document  was  disclosed  to  the 


518  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Hawaiian  Parliament  and  was  ratified  by  both  Houses  on  June 
21,  1851.  The  document  was  shown  to  Luther  Severance,  who 
had  become  American  commissioner  in  Hawaii,  on  March  12,  and 
was  then  sealed  and  left  with  him,  with  the  superscription: 
"The  King  requests  the  Commissioner  of  the  United  States,  in 
case  the  flag  of  the  United  States  is  raised  above  the  Hawaiian, 
that  he  will  open  the  enclosed  and  act  accordingly. ' '  It  was  the 
purpose  of  the  king,  in  the  event  of  extreme  measures  by  the 
French,  to  raise  the  American  flag  above  the  Hawaiian  on  all 
public  buildings,  as  a  signal  to  the  American  commissioner  to 
proclaim  an  American  protectorate,  and  as  a  warning  to  the 
French  that  they  would  have  the  United  States  to  deal  with  if 
they  proceeded  further.  A  flag  showing  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
on  one  side  and  the  Hawaiian  colors  on  the  other  was  also  pre 
pared  for  use  by  the  ladies  of  the  Hawaiian  court. 

Severance  reported  all  these  things  and  the  detailed  progress 
of  affairs  to  Webster,  who  had  now  succeeded  Clayton  at  the 
state  department,  and  Webster  in  reply  urged  him  to  be  firm 
but  cautious.  He  was  to  return  the  protectorate  document  to 
the  king,  and  he  was  not  to  let  the  naval  forces  of  the  United 
Sates  become  embroiled  with  those  of  France,  the  making  of 
war  being  a  congressional  function.  He  was  to  avoid  encour 
aging  any  one  in  "any  idea  or  expectation  that  the  islands 
will  become  annexed  to  the  United  States. ' '  These  were  private 
instructions  to  Severance.  For  official  and  public  purposes 
Webster  wrote  as  follows : 

"The  Government  of  the  United  States  was  the  first  to 
acknowledge  the  national  existence  of  the  Hawaiian  government, 
and  to  treat  with  it  as  an  independent  state.  Its  example  was 
soon  followed  by  several  of  the  Governments  of  Europe,  and 
the  United  States,  true  to  its  treaty  obligations,  has  in  no  case 
interfered  with  the  Hawaiian  Government  for  the  purpose  of 
opposing  the  course  of  its  own  independent  conduct,  or  of  dic 
tating  to  it  any  particular  line  of  policy.  ...  It  declared  its 
real  purpose  to  be  to  favor  the  establishment  of  a  Government 
at  a  very  important  point  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  which  should 
be  able  to  maintain  such  relations  with  the  rest  of  the  world 
as  are  maintained  between  civilized  States.  .  .  . 

"This  Government  still  desired  to  see  the  nationality  of  the 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  519 

Hawaiian  Government  maintained,  its  independent  administra 
tion  of  public  affairs  respected,  and  its  prosperity  and  reputation 
increased. 

"But  while  thus  indisposed  to  exercise  any  sinister  influence 
itself  over  the  councils  of  Hawaii,  or  to  overawe  the  proceedings 
of  its  Government  by  the  menace  or  the  actual  application  of 
superior  military  force,  it  expects  to  see  other  powerful  nations 
act  in  the  same  spirit.  It  is,  therefore,  with  unfeigned  regret 
that  the  President  has  read  the  correspondence  and  become 
acquainted  with  the  circumstances  occurring  between  the 
Hawaiian  Government  and  Mr.  Perrin,  the  commissioner  of 
France  at  Honolulu.  .  .  .  The  Hawaiian  Islands  are  ten  times 
nearer  to  the  United  States  than  to  any  of  the  powers  of  Europe. 
Five  sixths  of  all  their  commercial  intercourse  is  with  the  United 
States,  and  these  considerations,  together  with  others  of  a  more 
general  character,  have  fixed  the  course  which  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  will  pursue  in  regard  to  them.  The  an 
nunciation  of  this  policy  will  not  surprise  the  Governments  of 
Europe,  nor  be  thought  to  be  unreasonable  by  the  nations  of  the 
civilized  world;  and  that  policy  is,  that  while  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  itself,  faithful  to  its  original  assurance, 
scrupulously  regards  the  independence  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands, 
it  can  never  consent  to  see  those  islands  taken  possession  of  by 
either  of  the  great  commercial  powers  of  Europe,  nor  can  it 
consent  that  demands  manifestly  unjust  and  derogatory,  and 
inconsistent  with  a  bona  fide  independence,  shall  be  enforced 
against  that  Government. ' ' 

Most  significant  as  a  warning  to  France  was  this  addendum 
to  the  foregoing: 

"The  Navy  Department  will  receive  instructions  to  place  and 
to  keep  the  naval  armament  of  the  United  States  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean  in  such  a  state  of  strength  and  preparation  as  shall  be 
requisite  for  the  preservation  of  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the 
United  States  and  the  safety  of  the  Government  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands." 

This  was  tantamount  to  a  declaration  that  our  navy  would 
be  used  if  necessary  for  the  protection  of  Hawaiian  independence 
against  French  aggression.  A  little  before  this,  also,  Webster 
had  written  to  Rives  at  Paris,  for  communication  to  the  French 


520  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

government,  that  enforcement  of  the  French  demands  ''would 
be  tantamount  to  a  subjugation  of  the  islands  to  the  dominion 
of  France.  A  step  like  this  could  not  fail  to  be  viewed  by  the 
Government  and  people  of  the  United  States  with  a  dissatisfac 
tion  which  would  tend  seriously  to  disturb  our  existing  friendly 
relations  with  the  French  Government.  This  is  a  result  to  be 
deplored.  If,  therefore,  it  would  not  be  too  late,  it  is  hoped 
that  you  will  make  such  representations  upon  the  subject  to  the 
minister  of  foreign  affairs  of  France  as  will  induce  that  Govern 
ment  to  desist  from  measures  incompatible  with  the  sovereignty 
and  independence  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  and  to  make  amends 
for  the  acts  which  the  French  agents  have  already  committed 
there  in  contravention  of  the  law  of  nations,  and  of  the  treaty 
between  the  Hawaiian  Government  and  France." 

Copies  of  the  letter  to  Severance  were  transmitted  to  Paris 
and  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  French  minister  at  Wash 
ington,  with  a  prompt  and  gratifying  result.  Louis  Napoleon 
had  no  stomach  at  that  stage  of  his  usurpation  for  a  war  with 
the  United  States.  His  Government  therefore,  while  expressing 
' '  surprise ' '  at  the  course  and  utterances  of  the  American  govern 
ment,  disclaimed  any  intention  of  intervening  improperly  in 
Hawaiian  affairs,  particularly  of  claiming  sovereignty  over  the 
islands,  and  the  incident  was  closed  with  a  practical  withdrawal 
of  the  extravagant  French  demands. 

Thus  far  the  United  States  government  had  been  profuse  in 
its  protestations  that  it  had  no  desire  to  annex  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  and  no  thought  of  doing  so;  in  which  it  was  doubtless 
sincere.  But  Great  Britain  and  France  were  becoming  increas 
ingly  skeptical  of  the  perpetuity  of  that  policy  of  renunciation, 
and  the  sequence  of  events  in  the  near  future  showed  that  they 
were  justified  in  that  feeling.  We  need  not  assume,  as  some 
did,  that  the  United  States  had  all  along  been  warning  others 
off  Hawaii  in  order  to  grab  it  herself.  There  is  certainly  no 
cause  for  questioning  Webster's  entire  sincerity  in  his  disclaim 
ers.  But  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  logic  of  events  becomes 
too  strong  for  even  the  most  resolute  intentions.  Had  the 
Hawaiian  government  steadfastly  desired  to  retain  its  inde 
pendence,  the  United  States  would  most  probably  have  main 
tained  its  renunciatory  policy.  But  beginning  with  that  offer 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  521 

to  come  under  our  protection  in  March,  1851,  the  annexationist 
spirit  in  Hawaii  grew  rapidly,  and  it  was  met  half  way  by  the 
expansionist  spirit  which  prevailed  at  Washington  under 
Marcy 's  administration  of  the  state  department.  As  early  as 
September  22,  1853,  Marcy  wrote  to  David  L.  Gregg,  the  Ameri 
can  commissioner  in  Hawaii,  that  it  seemed  likely  that  the  islands 
at  a  future  date,  perhaps  not  distant,  would  be  transferred  to  or 
come  under  the  protectorate  of  some  other  power  than  their  own. 
It  was  not  the  policy  of  the  United  States  to  accelerate  such  a 
change.  But  if  in  the  course  of  events  it  became  inevitable,  the 
United  States  would  take  the  islands  itself  rather  than  have  V  ^ 
them  pass  to  any  third  power,  an  event  which  would  be  unfavor-  I 
able  to  our  welfare.  To  this  Gregg  replied  that  the  Hawaiian 
government  was  becoming  more  and  more  convinced  of  the 
impossibility  of  its  maintaining  permanent  independence,  and 
that  it  was  in  consequence  more  and  more  inclining  toward  an 
nexation  to  the  United  States.  At  this  Marcy  wrote,  on  De 
cember  16,  to  Mason,  the  minister  to  France,  that  it  seemed  to 
him  inevitable  that  the  islands  must  come  under  the  control  of 
this  Government,  and  also,  that  it  would  be  only  reasonable  and 
fair  that  Great  Britain  and  France  should  acquiesce  in  such  a 
transfer,  provided  that  it  were  effected  by  fair  means.  Both 
those  countries  had  already  been  apprised  of  our  determination 
not  to  let  the  islands  pass  to  one  of  them  or  to  any  other  nation, 
and  they  ought  to  realize  that  in  case  of  the  inability  of  the 
islands  to  maintain  an  independent  status,  they  must  come  to 
us.  He  therefore  desired  Mason  to  "ascertain,  if  possible,  with 
out  making  it  a  matter  of  direct  discussion,  what  would  prob 
ably  be  the  course  of  France  in  case  of  an  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  United  States  to  add  these  islands  to  our  territorial  pos 
sessions  by  negotiation  or  other  peaceable  means. ' ' 

The  results  of  Mason's  inquiries  were  negative,  but  it  was 
pretty  generally  understood  that  Great  Britain  and  France 
would  both  protest  against  American  annexation  of  the  islands. 
Marcy  was  not  discouraged,  however,  and  in  April,  1854,  he  in 
structed  Gregg  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  annexation.  He  pointed 
out  that  if  the  United  States  established  a  protectorate  over  the 
islands  it  would  take  upon  itself  heavy  and  responsible  duties 
for  which  it  could  hardly  expect  to  receive  compensating  ad- 


522  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

vantages.  He  understood,  he  added,  that  the  people  of  the 
islands  desired  to  have  the  islands  "become  a  part  of  our  ter 
ritories  and  be  under  the  control  of  this  Government  as  fully 
as  any  other  of  its  territorial  possessions."  It  would  be  neces 
sary,  and  just,  for  the  United  States  to  pay  annuities  to  the 
native  chiefs  whose  rule  would  be  extinguished,  and  this  should 
be  done  liberally,  perhaps  to  the. gross  amount  of  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  a  ^eax^-Gregg  proceeded  with  negotiations, 
which  were  facilitated  by  the  influence  of  commercial  interests, 
and  by  rumors  of  uprisings  against  the  native  dynasty  and  of 
filibustering  enterprises  from  our  Pacific  coast. 

As  soon  as  it  became  known  that  such  negotiations  were  in 
progress,  the  British  and  French  representatives  in  the  islands 
addressed  to  the  king  a  strong  joint  remonstrance  against  an 
nexation  of  the  islands  to  the  United  States,  while  on  the  other 
hand  many  petitions  from  the  natives  were  presented  to  him 
in  favor  of  annexation.  Then  there  appeared  one  day  at  Hono 
lulu  a  combined  British  and  French  fleet  of  eight  vessels  of 
war,  which  had  been  ordered  thither  in  haste  from  Callao,  Peru. 
Its  commanders  called  upon  the  king  and  urged  him  not  to  listen 
to  any  proposals  of  annexation  to  the  United  States,  since  the 
consummation  of  such  an  act  would  certainly  cause  trouble  and 
would  possibly  lead  to  war  with  both  their  countries.  To  this 
the  king  made  a  noncommittal  reply,  and  the  fleet  departed  after 
a  few  days.  At  a  later  date  the  British  consul  had  an  audience 
of  the  king,  and  for  more  than  an  hour  argued,  pleaded,  and 
threatened  against  the  annexation  scheme.  He  literally  railed 
against  the  United  States,  and  warned  the  king  that  it  would 
be  disastrous  for  the  islands  to  fall  under  its  corrupting  influ 
ence.  The  king  listened  patiently,  and  at  the  end  made  a  non 
committal  reply,  but  shrewdly  and  strongly  intimated  that 
thenceforth  all  communications  of  importance  would  better  be 
submitted  in  writing. 

Finally,  the  treaty  was  made,  and  was  sent  to  Marcy  at  Wash 
ington,  who  disapproved  it  in  two  major  respects.  One  objec 
tion  was,  to  the  amount  of  the  annuities  to  the  chiefs,  which 
had  been  fixed,  against  Gregg's  will,  at  three  times  the  maxi 
mum  amount  which  Marcy  had  suggested.  The  other  and  more 
serious  objection  was  to  the  proposed  status  of  the  islands  after 


EARLY  DEALINGS  WITH  HAWAII  523 

annexation.  Marcy  had  written  to  Gregg,  as  also  to  Mason 
in  Paris,  of  the  addition  of  the  islands  "to  our  territorial  pos 
sessions,"  at  that  date  wisely  discerning  the  prudence  and  in 
deed  the  necessity  for  our  national  integrity  that  the  constitu 
tional  United  States  should  be  strictly  confined  to  contiguous' 
territory  on  the  North  American  continent,  and  that  all  out 
lying  and  insular  possessions  should  be  held  permanently  in 
a  territorial  status.  But  the  Hawaiians  were  intent  not  merely 
upon  ultimate  but  upon  proximate  if  not  immediate  statehood 
in  the  Union,  and  they  therefore  insisted  upon  the  incorpora 
tion  in  the  treaty  of  annexation  of  a  provision  to  that  effect. 
That  damned  it  in  Marcy 's  eyes;  and  if  in  his,  surely  in  those 
of  all  other  serious  statesmen.  The  treaty  was  therefore  not 
referred  to  the  Senate,  but  was  returned  to  Gregg  for  revision. 
But  before  Gregg  could  obtain  the  needed  changes,  if  indeed 
he  could  have  done  so  at  all,  which  is  doubtful,  the  king  died, 
and  his  successor  was  disinclined  to  annexation  on  any  terms. 
The  matter  was  therefore  dropped  for  the  time. 

Reciprocity  was  next  considered.  For  this  both  countries 
were  ready,  if  not  eager.  Hawaii  sent  commissioners  to  Wash 
ington  to  seek  it,  and  Marcy  was  responsive  and  sympathetic. 
On  July  20,  1855,  a  treaty  of  commercial  reciprocity  was  made, 
and  was  sent  to  the  Senate  for  ratification.  It  was  understood 
that  the  committee  on  foreign  relations,  to  which  it  was  referred, 
was  favorably  inclined  toward  it,  but  for  some  reason  which 
never  was  disclosed  it  was  never  brought  up  for  action.  Dur 
ing  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States,  in  1863  and  1864,  ef 
forts  were  made  by  the  Hawaiian  government  to  get  the  reci 
procity  treaty  taken  up  again  and  ratified,  but  in  view  of  the 
probable  effect  of  it  upon  the  public  revenues  at  that  time  the 
United  States  government  declined  to  consider  such  a  course. 
At  this  time,  however,  the  rank  of  the  American  representa 
tive  in  Hawaii  was  raised  from  that  of  commissioner  to  that  of 
minister  resident.  In  1866  the  Dowager  Queen  of  Hawaii  vis- 
isted  the  United  States,  on  her  way  home  from  England.  In 
1867  a  new  reciprocity  treaty  was  negotiated,  but  after  being 
pigeon-holed  for  three  years  it  was  rejected  by  the  Senate. 
Again  in  1867,  1868,  and  1871  the  question  of  annexation  was 
reopened.  Seward,  as  secretary  of  state,  in  the  first  named  year 


524  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

declared  that  "a  lawful  and  peaceful  annexation  of  the  islands 
to  the  United  States,  with  the  consent  of  the  people  of  the 
islands,  is  deemed  desirable  by  this  Government";  adding  that 
"if  the  policy  of  annexation  should  really  conflict  with  the  pol 
icy  of  reciprocity,  annexation  is  in  every  case  to  be  preferred." 
The  next  year,  however,  Seward  confessed  that  the  settlement 
of  the  issues  arising  out  of  the  Civil  War  dominated  the  national 
mind  and  attention  to  the  exclusion  even  of  "the  higher  but 
more  remote  questions  of  national  extension  and  aggrandize 
ment."  In  the  early  part  of  1871  the  minister  of  the  United 
States  to  Hawaii,  Henry  A.  Pierce,  reopened  the  annexation 
question,  and  his  despatch  to  the  President  was  confidentially 
submitted  to  the  Senate  without  recommendation,  though  the 
opinion  of  the  Senate  was  solicited  as  a  guide  to  future  action. 
The  result  was  that  nothing  was  done  in  that  direction  for  many 
years. 


XX 

SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION 

IN  the  decade  of  1831  to  1840  a  material  change  in  the  rela 
tions  of  the  United  States  to  some  of  the  chief  European 
countries  began  to  be  effected  through  the  medium  of  greatly 
increased  immigration.  Thitherto  the  number  of  aliens  entering 
this  country  had  been  comparatively  small,  and  had  been  chiefly 
from  the  British  Isles.  Thus  in  the  eleven  years  from  1820  to 
1830,  less  than  100,000  persons  came  hither  from  Europe,  of 
whom  more  than  75,000  were  from  the  United  Kingdom,  nearly 
51,000  being  from  Ireland,  over  22,000  from  England  and 
Wales,  and  nearly  3000  from  Scotland.  In  that  period  8497 
came  from  France  and  6761  from  Germany.  These  were  not 
sufficient  to  produce  any  marked  effect  upon  either  the  do 
mestic  economy  or  the  foreign  relations  of  the  United  States,  the 
total  population  of  which  at  that  time  ranged  from  10,000,000 
in  1820  to  13,000,000  in  1830.  But  foUowing  1830  the  tide  of 
immigration  was  enormously  increased,  and  its  sources  were 
greatly  changed.  In  the  ten  years  from  1831  to  1840  the  in 
flux  from  Europe  rose  to  495,688,  or  five  times  as  great  as  in 
the  preceding  decade.  The  United  Kingdom  still  contributed 
the  major  part,  though  not  as  large  as  a  majority  as  before, 
its  total  being  something  over  283,000,  of  whom  207,000  were 
from  Ireland  and  73,000  from  England.  The  number  from 
France  increased  fivefold,  to  45,500.  But  most  marked  and 
significant  of  all  was  the  increase  in  German  immigration,  which 
rose  to  152,454,  or  considerably  more  than  the  total  from  all 
countries  in  the  preceding  decade.  The  process  continues  in 
the  succeeding  years,  owing  chiefly  to  industrial  distress  in  Ire 
land  and  to  political  unrest  in  Germany.  In  the  years  1841 
to  1850  Europe  sent  us  a  total  of  1,597,000,  of  whom  263,000 
were  from  England,  780,000  from  Ireland,  77,000  from  France, 
434,600  from  Germany,  and  14,000  from  Sweden  and  Norway. 

525 


526  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

The  influx  of  1,500,000  aliens  into  a  nation  of  only  23,000,000 
was  sufficient  to  produce  a  marked  social  and  economic  effect, 
and  also  a  perceptible  influence  upon  the  attitude  of  this  coun 
try  toward  some  foreign  lands.  The  succeeding  decade,  1851 
to  1860,  saw  similar  causes  produce  similar  results.  The  total 
influx  from  Europe  was  2,452,657,  of  which  number  Ireland  con 
tributed  914,119,  the  largest  number  on  record  from  that  coun 
try;  England  sent  385,643,  Scotland  38,331,  Switzerland  25,- 
011,  Spain  and  Portugal  10,353,  Sweden  and  Norway  20,931, 
the  Netherlands  10,789,  Italy  9231,  the  first  considerable  num 
ber  from  that  country,  France  76,358,  and  Germany  the  enor 
mous  total  of  951,667,  the  largest  number  from  any  country  at 
that  time.  And  in  1860  the  total  population  of  the  United 
States  was  only  about  30,000,000. 

One  effect  of  this  increase  of  naturalized  citizenship  was 
the  formation,  in  the  years  between  1850  and  1860,  of  the  short 
lived  American  or  "Know  Nothing "  party,  one  of  whose  pur 
poses  was  to  resist  foreign  influence  in  American  affairs  by  ex 
cluding  foreign-born  citizens  from  official  place.  It  was  a 
secret,  oath-bound  organization  which  soon  fell  into  disrepute 
and  vanished  with  the  dissolution  of  the  "Whig  party,  of  which 
it  was  really  a  part.  Far  more  important  and  more  lasting  was 
the  effect  produced  by  the  addition  of  naturalized  citizens  in 
great  masses  to  one  or  the  other  of  the  political  parties;  this 
being  sufficient  in  several  States  to  control  domestic  poli 
tics  and  to  decide  the  results  of  elections.  Most  regrettable 
of  all,  however,  was  the  attempt,  which  was  occasionally  made, 
to  use  this  control  of  domestic  politics  as  a  means  of  influenc 
ing  governmental  policy  in  foreign  affairs. 

The  various  revolutionary  movements  in  Europe  inevitably 
attracted  much  attention  here,  and  on  several  occasions  involved 
the  United  States  in  diplomatic  controversies.  One  of  the  most 
notable  examples  of  this  was  in  1849  and  the  two  or  three  suc 
ceeding  years.  At  that  time  occurred  the  revolt  of  Hungary 
against  the  reactionary  despotism  of  Austria.  American  sym 
pathies  had  already  been  greatly  aroused  and  drawn  out  by 
the  revolutionary  and  democratic  movements  of  the  preceding 
year  throughout  most  of  the  continental  countries,  and  they  were 
further  intensified  by  the  representations  of  tfie  tens  of  thou- 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  527 

sands  of  political  exiles  and  refugees  who  flocked  to  America 
upon  the  suppression  of  those  uprisings.  Accordingly  when 
Louis  Kossuth  and  his  fellow  Magyars  raised  the  standard  of 
Hungarian  republicanism  against  the  imperialistic  absolutism 
of  Austria,  a  popular  wave  of  interest  and  enthusiasm  in  their 
behalf  swept  over  the  United  States,  of  which  the  Government 
could  not  help  feeling  the  influence.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Hun 
garian  republicanism  was  very  far  removed  from  that  of  Amer 
ica.  But  it  bore  the  same  name;  and  it  presented  a  grateful 
contrast  to  the  autocracy  with  which  the  Habsburg  emperor  began 
his  reign. 

In  1849  the  American  secretary  of  state,  Clayton,  sent  Dud 
ley  A.  Mann  as  a  special  envoy  to  observe  the  progress  of  the 
struggle  and  to  recognize  the  Hungarian  republic  in  case  he 
found  it  sufficiently  well  established  to  warrant  such  action. 
Before  Mann  arrived  in  Hungary,  however,  the  Russian  czar 
had  sent  an  army  down  to  aid  the  Austrians,  and  these  imperial 
and  absolutist  allies  had  crushed  the  Magyar  revolt  beyond  all 
hope  of  success  and  Kossuth  and  the  other  leaders  had  fled  to 
Turkey  for  asylum.  He  therefore  took  no  action  toward  the 
recognition  of  Hungary,  but  sent  a  detailed  report  of  his  mis 
sion  home  to  Washington.  The  President,  Taylor,  in  his  mes 
sage  to  Congress  in  December,  1849,  referred  to  this  incident, 
and  said  that  he  had  sent  Mann  on  the  errand  because  he  had 
deemed  it  his  duty  in  accordance  with  the  general  sentiment  of 
the  American  people  to  be  prepared  to  be  the  first  to  welcome 
Hungary  into  the  family  of  nations  in  case  she  should  succeed 
in  establishing  her  independence.  The  propriety  of  this  was 
perhaps  open  to  dispute,  though  there  was  much  to  be  said  in 
its  favor.  Hungary  was  by  right  entirely  independent  of  Aus 
tria,  though  having  the  same  sovereign,  and  her  revolt  was 
against  an  unacceptable  king  and  not  against  Austria,  to  which 
country  she  was  in  no  sense  subject.  But  the  Austrians  took 
great  umbrage  at  the  incident,  and  the  charge  d'affaires  at 
Washington,  Huelsemann,  sent  to  Clayton  a  note  vigorously 
protesting  against  what  he  considered  an  unwarranted  and  un 
friendly  intrusion  into  the  domestic  concerns  of  a  sovereign 
and  friendly  power.  While  this  controversy  was  in  progress 
President  Taylor  died,  and  in  the  reorganization  of  the  cabinet 


528  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

which  followed  Daniel  Webster  succeeded  Clayton  as  secretary 
of  state.  To  him  Huelsemann  addressed  another  note,  still 
stronger  in  tone.  Indeed,  it  may  fairly  be  considered  as  hector 
ing  and  offensive.  Webster  so  regarded  it,  and  he  determined 
to  administer  a  sharp  rebuke,  which  he  did.  He  asserted,  with 
irresistible  logic,  the  right  and  the  intention  of  the  United 
States  to  recognize  any  de  facto  revolutionary  government  which 
it  deemed  worthy  of  recognition;  and  consequently  its  right  to 
seek,  in  any  proper  way,  the  information  necessary  to  guide  its 
action  aright.  Such  information  was  the  object  of  Mann's  mis 
sion,  and  there  was  no  ground  for  complaint  against  it.  Hav 
ing  thus  vindicated  the  course  of  this  Government,  he  proceeded 
with  a  rebuke  to  Austria,  in  a  contrast  between  that  empire  and 
this  republic.  "The  power  of  this  republic,"  he  wrote,  "at 
the  present  moment  is  spread  over  a  region  one  of  the  richest 
and  most  fertile  on  the  globe,  and  of  an  extent  in  comparison 
with  which  the  possessions  of  the  House  of  Habsburg  are  but 
a  patch  on  the  earth's  surface.  Life,  liberty,  property,  and  per 
sonal  rights  are  amply  secured  to  all  citizens  and  protected  by 
just  and  stable  laws;  and  credit,  public  and  private,  is  as  well 
established  as  in  any  government  of  continental  Europe.  Cer 
tainly  the  United  States  may  be  pardoned,  even  by  those  who 
profess  adherence  to  the  principle  of  absolute  governments,  if 
they  entertain  an  ardent  affection  for  those  popular  forms  of 
political  organization  which  have  so  rapidly  advanced  their  own 
prosperity  and  happiness,  and  enabled  them  in  so  short  a  period 
to  bring  their  country  and  the  hemisphere  to  which  it  belongs 
to  the  notice  and  respectful  regard — not  to  say  the  admiration--— 
of  the  civilized  world." 

That  was  not  in  Webster's  best  style.  It  was  not  one  of  the 
worthiest  of  state  documents.  It  has,  indeed,  been  described 
by  a  judicious  and  not  unfriendly  historian,  John  F.  Rhodes, 
as  "hardly  more  than  a  stump  speech  under  diplomatic  guise." 
Webster  himself  realized  it  to  be  such,  and  so  intended  it.  Writ 
ing  to  a  correspondent  he  said:  "If  you  say  that  my  Huelse 
mann  letter  is  boastful  and  rough,  I  shall  own  the  soft  impeach 
ment.  My  excuse  is  twofold.  First,  I  thought  it  well  enough 
to  speak  out  and  tell  the  people  of  Europe  who  and  what  we 
are,  and  awaken  them  to  a  just  sense  of  the  unparalleled  growth 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  529 

of  this  country.  Second,  I  wished  to  write  a  paper  which  ' 
would  touch  the  national  pride."  In  this  latter  object  he  cer 
tainly  succeeded.  No  utterance  from  the  state  department  ever 
met  with  more  prompt  and  passionate  approval  from  the  whole 
nation.  The  time  was,  of  course,  psychologically  well  chosen. 
The  militant  fever  of  the  Mexican  War  had  not  yet  subsided, 
and  the  American  people  were  regarding  it  as  their  ''manifest 
destiny"  to  "whip  all  creation"  and  to  cause  the  United  States 
to  be  "bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Aurora  Borealis,  on  the 
south  by  the  Precession  of  the  Equinoxes,  on  the  east  by 
Primeval  Chaos,  and  on  the  west  by  the  Day  of  Judgment." 
There  was,  moreover,  legitimate  ground  for  hatred  of  the  op 
pression  which  Austria  and  Russia  had  exerted  upon  Hungary; 
and  for  resentment  at  what  Lowell  aptly  termed — and  rightly 
execrated — "a  certain  condescension  in  foreigners."  So  on  the 
whole  it  is  impossible  to  remember  without  a  thrill  of  patriotic 
exultation  this  intrepid  American  challenge  to  that  ancient  and 
immeasurably  proud  and  haughty  House  of  Habsburg  which 
vaunted  itself  as  the  direct  political  successor  of  the  Caesars  of 
Imperial  Rome. 

This  utterance  was  promptly  followed  with  both  official  and 
popular  action  still  more  ruffling  to  Austrian  susceptibilities. 
A  resolution  was  adopted  by  Congress  formally  inviting  Kos- 
suth  and  his  fellow  exiles  to  become  the  guests  of  the  United 
States,  and  in  order  to  avert  danger  of  their  capture  by  the 
Austrian  government  while  on  their  way  hither  a  warship  of 
the  United  States  navy  was  despatched  to  Turkey  to  convey 
them.  Kossuth  was  received  upon  his  arrival  in  New  York  with 
public  and  official  demonstrations  of  welcome  such  as  not  even 
Lafayette  had  enjoyed.  He  was  taken  to  Washington,  received 
by  the  secretary  of  state,  presented  to  the  President,  and  re 
ceived  by  both  Houses  of  Congress  with  elaborate  ceremonies. 
Had  he  been  the  sovereign  or  the  president  of  some  great  and 
friendly  nation,  no  more  marked  and  flattering  attention  could 
have  been  paid  to  him.  Much  of  this  arose  from  the  spirit  which 
had  been  manifested  in  Webster's  letter  to  Huelsemann,  from 
a  sincere  sympathy  with  European  liberalism  and  hatred  of  the 
reactionary  course  of  Austria  and  Russia,  which  was  likened 
not  inaptly  to  that  of  the  Holy  Alliance  thirty  years  before. 

VOL.  I — 34 


530  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

Much  of  it  was  also  inspired  by  the  remarkable  personality  of 
Kossuth  himself,  his  picturesque  appearance,  his  magnetic  elo 
quence,  and  the  romantic  features  of  his  career.  Much,  too, 
it  must  be  confessed,  was  prompted  by  sordid  and  selfish  politi 
cal  ambition,  political  leaders  of  the  two  American  parties  com 
peting  in  their  laudations  of  him,  in  the  hope  of  thus  using 
the  popular  enthusiasm  over  him  for  the  promotion  of  their  own 
ends. 

All  this  was  of  course  intensely  annoying  to  the  Austrian 
charge  d'affaires,  who  was  still  smarting  under  the  castigation 
of  Webster's  letter,  and  when,  as  he  thought,  the  matter  was 
brought  to  a  climax  by  Webster's  attendance  and  eulogistic 
speech  at  a  public  banquet  given  to  Kossuth,  he  addressed  a 
letter  of  remonstrance  and  protest  to  the  secretary  of  state.  To 
this  no  reply  was  given.  Huelsemann  thereupon  sought  an  in 
terview  with  the  President  himself,  and  repeated  to  him  the 
protest  which  Webster  had  ignored.  The  sequel  to  this  was  a 
note  to  him  from  Webster,  informing  him  that  the  United  States 
government  wished  no  further  intercourse  with  him  save  such 
as  might  be  comprised  in  written  communications  addressed  to 
the  secretary  of  state.  This  was  almost  tantamount  to  dismissal ; 
and  Huelsemann  so  regarded  it.  He  promptly  left  Washington 
and  returned  to  Austria,  declaring  in  a  note  of  farewell  to  Web 
ster  that  his  Government  was  recalling  him  because  it  could 
not  permit  him  to  remain  any  longer  "to  continue  an  official 
intercourse  with  the  principal  promoters  of  the  much  to  be  la 
mented  Kossuth  episode."  Webster  reported  this  to  the  Amer 
ican  minister  at  Vienna  in  a  letter  in  which  he  sought  to  vindi 
cate  his  own  course  and  to  put  Huelsemann  entirely  in  the 
wrong.  He  pointed  out  that  as  a  mere  secretary  of  legation  and 
charge  d'affaires  ad,  interim  Huelsemann  had  no  right  to  dis 
cuss  diplomatic  business  with  the  President,  and  certainly  none 
to  appeal  to  the  President  over  the  head  of  the  secretary  of 
state,  especially  against  mere  newspaper  utterances  and  the  re 
marks  of  private  citizens.  His  own  remarks  at  the  Kossuth  ban 
quet,  he  insisted,  were  made  in  his  private  capacity  and  not 
officially  as  secretary  of  state,  and  therefore  the  Austrian  govern 
ment  had  no  occasion  to  take  offense  at  them. 

All  this  was  technically  true  enough,  though  of  its  substan- 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  531 

tial  sincerity  there  may  be  some  doubt.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  craze  over  Kossuth  was  carried  much  too  far.  Indeed, 
it  had  a  disastrous  effect  upon  that  impulsive  patriot  himself, 
in  giving  him  an  exaggerated  estimate  of  the  attitude  and  pur 
poses  of  the  American  government.  He  did  not  content  him 
self  with  traveling  from  city  to  city,  making  public  addresses 
intended  to  arouse  sympathy  and  secure  pecuniary  aid  for  the 
Hungarian  cause.  He  actually  sought  to  enlist  the  United  States 
government  officially  in  the  campaign  and  to  get  it  to  intervene 
with  force  and  arms  in  behalf  of  European  revolutionists.  Some 
of  the  speeches  of  public  men,  including  senators  and  representa 
tives,  undoubtedly  encouraged  him  to  indulge  in  such  vagaries 
of  hope,  but  the  sounder  sense  of  the  nation  soon  reasserted 
itself  to  his  disappointment.  Webster,  despite  his  words,  would 
commit  the  Government  to  no  official  act  in  behalf  of  Hungary, 
and  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  was  that  in  1852  Kos 
suth  returned  to  Europe,  to  find  asylum  in  Switzerland,  with 
only  a  small  sum  of  money  contributed  by  his  American  admir 
ers,  and  amid  a  popular  indifference  which  presented  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  delirium  of  enthusiasm  which  had  marked  his 
coming  to  America. 

The  fact  was  that  the  American  people,  when  they  recovered 
from  the  first  flush  of  passion,  realized  that  they  had  been  in 
danger  of  going  too  far.  They  were  being  tempted  through 
over-generous  sympathies,  if  not  through  less  creditable  motives, 
to  intrude  themselves  unduly  into  European  affairs,  and  thus 
to  do  the  very  thing  which  in  the  Monroe  Doctrine  this  nation 
had  pledged  itself  not  to  do,  and  the  analogue  of  which  in  Euro 
pean  meddling  with  American  affairs  would  have  been  most 
vigorously  resented. 

A  sequel  to  the  Kossuth  episode  occurred  in  1853,  when 
William  L.  Marcy  had  succeeded  Webster  in  the  state  depart 
ment.  Among  the  Hungarian  revolutionists  who  had  come 
hither  with  Kossuth  was  one  Martin  Koszta,  who  declared  his 
intention  of  becoming  an  American  citizen  and  took  the  first 
steps  in  that  direction.  Before  the  process  of  naturalization  was 
complete,  however,  he  desired  to  visit  Asia  Minor  on  matters 
of  business,  and  did  so,  with  the  result  that  at  Smyrna  he  was 
arrested  by  Austrian  authorities  and  placed  aboard  an  Aus- 


532  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

trian  warship  to  be  conveyed  to  Trieste.  This  was  a  violation  of 
Turkish  neutrality,  but  the  Turkish  government  was  unable  or 
unwilling  to  prevent  it.  The  American  consul  protested,  how 
ever,  and  demanded  Koszta's  release,  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
declared  his  intention  of  becoming  an  American  citizen  and 
was  therefore  under  American  protection.  This  sufficed  to  de 
lay  Koszta's  removal  from  Smyrna  to  an  Austrian  port  until 
the  arrival  of  the  United  States  warship  St.  Louis,  whose  com 
mander,  Captain  Ingraham,  at  once  resorted  to  strenuous  meas 
ures  for  the  release  of  the  refugee.  Clearing  his  decks  for  ac 
tion,  he  notified  the  Austrian  commander  that  he  would  employ 
whatever  force  was  necessary  for  the  rescue  of  Koszta  unless 
he  was  released  by  an  appointed  time.  The  result  was  that 
Koszta  was  released  and  delivered  to  the  neutral  custody  of  the 
French  consul  until  the  dispute  could  be  settled  by  diplomatic 
means.  Eventually  he  was  returned  to  the  United  States,  though 
without  prejudice  to  the  conflicting  claims  over  the  points  of 
international  law  which  were  involved.  The  Austrian  govern 
ment  protested  against  the  actions  of  the  American  consul  and 
captain,  and  demanded  disavowal  of  them  and  reparation. 
Marcy,  however,  refused  even  to  consider  such  a  concession,  and 
in  a  detailed  state  paper  fully  supported  the  conduct  of  Cap 
tain  Ingraham ;  which  of  course  had  been  hailed  with  great  popu 
lar  enthusiasm  throughout  the  United  States. 

In  this  famous  Koszta  case  it  must  be  frankly  recognized  that 
both  Austria  and  the  United  States  were  in  error.  There  can 
be  no  question  that  the  action  of  the  Austrian  consul  and  naval 
commander  was  a  gross  violation  of  the  rights  of  sovereignty 
of  Turkey.  But  Captain  Ingraham 's  employment  of  force,  or 
his  threat  to  employ  it,  was  no  less  void  of  warrant  in  law. 
The  ground  on  which  it  was  justified  at  the  time  was  that  it 
was  a  vindication  of  Turkish  sovereignty  against  Austrian  ag 
gression.  But  that  would  have  been  valid  only  if  done  at  the 
request  of  Turkey,  which  was  not  the  case.  The  pretense  that 
Koszta  was  entitled  to  American  protection  because  he  had  de 
clared  his  intention  of  becoming  an  American  citizen  was  utterly 
fallacious  and  void,  at  any  rate  when  presented  to  Austria.  It 
is  probable  that  it  was  valid  as  between  the  United  States  and 
Turkey.  The  American  consul  at  Smyrna  had  indeed  given 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  533 

Koszta  a  traveling  pass  which  explicitly  declared  that  he  was  en 
titled  to  American  protection  and  which  was  respected  by  the 
Turkish  government.  If  its  declaration  was  unwarranted,  that 
was  a  matter  for  controversy  between  only  the  American  and 
Turkish  governments  and  no  other.  Koszta  had  never  been  other 
than  an  alien  to  Turkey,  and  the  Government  of  that  country 
could  have  no  claim  upon  his  allegiance;  wherefore  even  the 
slightest  shadow  of  protection  by  any  other  country  had  to  be 
respected.  But  never  has  the  proposition  been  maintainable  that 
mere  declaration  of  intention  to  become  naturalized  invests  a 
man  with  the  rights  of  citizenship  or  with  title  to  protection 
as  a  citizen,  against  the  demands  of  his  native  country.  The 
fact  is  that  at  that  time  and  down  to  a  much  later  date  the 
United  States  courts  were  generally  inclined  to  accept  the  old 
common-law  doctrine  that  a  man  could  not  at  his  own  will, 
and  without  the  consent  of  his  Government,  renounce  his  al 
legiance.  The  principle  of  individual  freedom  of  expatriation 
was  not  generally  and  explicitly  adopted  until  the  enactment 
of  a  law  to  that  effect  by  Congress  in  1868.  Buchanan  as  secre 
tary  of  state  did  indeed  insist  upon  that  principle,  and  at  va 
rious  other  times  in  our  early  history  it  was  asserted,  but  it  was 
not  or  would  not  have  been  sustained  by  the  courts.  As  for 
the  nonacquirement  of  citizenship  rights  by  the  mere  act  of 
declaring  intention,  there  can  be  no  doubt  on  that  subject  what 
ever.  Upshur,  as  secretary  of  state  in  1843,  Buchanan  in  1848, 
Marcy  in  1856,  and  Cass  in  1857,  unmistakably  declared  or  con 
ceded  that  the  preliminary  act  of  declaring  intention  to  become 
a  citizen  gave  no  title  to  protection  as  against  the  country  from 
which  the  subject  was  about  to  expatriate  himself.  Later  secre 
taries  of  state  have  been  still  more  emphatic,  to  the  same  effect. 
The  course  of  Captain  Ingraham,  and  that  of  Marcy  in  sustain 
ing  him  diplomatically,  must  really  be  esteemed  as  merely  a 
colossal  piece  of  "bluffing,"  which  happily,  however,  accorded 
with  the  equities  of  the  case. 

During  Pierce 's  administration  Marcy,  as  secretary  of  state, 
dealt  with  three  other  European  matters  in  a  similarly  resolute 
manner,  but  on  far  more  valid  grounds  of  law  and  right.  Dur 
ing  the  Crimean  War  various  British  agents,  including  the  min 
ister  at  "Washington  and  the  consuls  at  New  York,  Philadelphia, 


534  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

and  Cincinnati,  undertook  to  enlist  men  in  the  United  States 
for  service  in  the  British  army.  That  was  of  course  a  grave  vio 
lation  of  the  principle  of  neutrality,  as  well  as  of  the  statutes 
of  the  United  States.  It  also  aroused  much  popular  indigna 
tion  in  this  country,  and  actually  turned  toward  Russia  the 
American  friendship  and  sympathy  which  had  been  alienated  by 
her  assistance  of  Austria  against  Hungary.  The  offense  was  so 
flagrant — though  far  less  on  the  part  of  the  minister  than  of  the 
consuls — that  the  Government  could  not  help  taking  cognizance 
of  it.  Crampton,  the  British  minister,  had  been  in  this  coun 
try  for  a  long  time  and  was  much  liked,  both  in  society  and  by 
the  officials  with  whom  he  came  into  contact.  For  that  reason 
Marcy  at  first  merely  protested  against  his  indiscretions.  This 
being  ineffective,  he  suggested  to  the  British  government  that 
Crampton  should  be  transferred,  without  reproach,  to  some 
other  post.  Lord  Clarendon,  however,  positively  declined  to 
take  this  course,  and  refused  to  concede  that  Crampton  had 
done  anything  amiss.  Thereupon  in  May,  1856,  Marcy  sent  the 
minister  his  passports  and  dismissed  him  from  the  country.  The 
three  consuls  mentioned  were  also  dismissed.  Much  indignation 
was  expressed  in  the  British  press,  and  there  were  demands 
that  the  American  minister  at  London  should  be  dismissed  by 
way  of  retaliation.  The  British  government  apparently  recog 
nized,  however,  that  Crampton  had  at  least  been  indiscreet  and 
that  the  American  government  was  justified  in  its  action ;  where 
fore  it  did  nothing  in  return  but  to  leave  its  Washington  mission 
vacant  until  the  beginning  of  the  next  administration. 

At  the  end  of  the  Crimean  War  the  various  European  powers 
which  had  participated  in  it,  and  which  therefore  united  in  the 
treaty  of  peace,  adopted  at  Paris  in  1856  a  series  of  regulations 
for  the  conduct  of  warfare  at  sea,  to  which  they  invited  the  ad 
herence  of  other  nations  with  a  view  to  making  them  a  part 
of  the  international  law  of  the  world.  These  regulations,  con 
stituting  what  is  historically  known  as  the  Declaration  of  Paris, 
were  four  in  number.  The  first  provided  for  the  abolition  of 
privateering.  The  second  exempted  from  seizure  an  enemy's 
goods  under  a  neutral  flag.  The  third  exempted  from  seizure 
neutral  goods  under  an  enemy's  flag.  The  fourth  declared  that 
a  blockade  in  order  to  be  valid  must  be  effectively  maintained 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  535 

with  an  adequate  naval  force.  As  all  of  these  but  the  first  had 
long  been  advocated  by  the  United  States,  it  was  expected  that 
this  country  would  at  once  subscribe  to  them.  But  Marcy  re 
fused  to  do  so.  The  abolition  of  privateering  was  to  be  ap 
proved,  he  held,  in  principle.  But  in  practice  it  would  be 
greatly  to  the  advantage  of  nations  with  strong  navies,  and 
to  the  disadvantage  of  the  United  States  with  its  comparatively 
small  navy  and  very  large  mercantile  marine.  He  therefore 
declined  to  accept  that  declaration,  unless  there  should  be  added 
another  rule  exempting  from  seizure  in  naval  warfare  all  pri 
vate  property,  save  only  contraband  of  war.  This,  which  was 
in  effect  the  adoption  in  sea  warfare  of  the  rule  which  pre 
vailed  on  land,  had  been  advocated  long  before  by  Franklin, 
when  it  had  been  derided  as  visionary  and  Utopian.  The  Euro 
pean  powers  declined  to  accept  it,  and  consequently  the  United 
States  did  not  become  a  party  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris. 

In  1857  the  American  government  protested  to  the  Danish 
government  against  the  further  imposition  of  dues  upon  ves 
sels  for  passage  through  the  Sound,  between  the  North  Sea  and 
the  Baltic.  This  exaction  had  been  made  from  time  immemorial, 
and  European  powers  had  been  unable  to  effect  its  abatement. 
Marcy  took  the  matter  up  in  vigorous  and  resolute  fashion,  and 
succeeded  in  securing  a  treaty  under  which  the  dues  were  for 
ever  abolished  in  consideration  of  a  cash  commutation.  This 
important  reform  was,  of  course,  for  the  equal  benefit  of  all 
maritime  powers. 

It  is  a  pity  to  be  compelled  to  record  that  Marcy 's  masterful 
administration  of  the  state  department  was  marred  with  one 
conspicuous  triviality  which  involved  American  ministers  abroad 
in  no  little  ridicule.  This  was  the  issuing  of  a  note  advising 
all  American  diplomatic  representatives  at  foreign  courts  to 
wear  no  ceremonial  uniforms  or  '  '  court  dress, ' '  but  to  insist  upon 
appearing,  at  all  functions,  "like  Franklin,  in  the  simple  cos 
tume  of  an  American  citizen."  Thitherto,  a  simple  but  appro 
priate  uniform  had  been  prescribed  for  their  wearing,  but 
Marcy  seemed  to  regard  it  as  "undemocratic."  The  effect  of  his 
advice,  which  was  practically  an  order,  was  in  some  cases  simply 
ludicrous  and  in  others  gravely  embarrassing,  actually  endanger 
ing  the  friendly  relations  of  the  United  States  with  several 


536  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

European  countries.  In  France,  Spain,  and  Prussia  it  was 
found  to  be  impossible  to  appear  at  court  in  ordinary  civilian 
attire,  and  in  order  to  avoid  an  open  breach  and  withdrawal 
from  their  missions  the  ministers  were  compelled  to  devise  court 
costumes  of  their  own.  It  is  said  that  that  worn  by  Mason, 
in  Paris,  was  copied  by  a  tailor  from  a  model  furnished  by  the 
servants  of  the  Austrian  embassy!  In  London,  Buchanan  was 
plumply  informed  by  the  authorities  that  while  he  might  wear 
what  he  pleased  on  ordinary  occasions,  he  could  not  hope  to  be 
invited  to  court  dinners  and  balls  unless  he  came  in  court  dress. 
He  insisted  upon  following  Marcy's  advice,  however,  and  ac 
cordingly  when  he  was  invited  to  attend  the  opening  of  Parlia 
ment  he  declined  to  go,  because  the  invitation  stated  that  no 
one  not  in  full  uniform  could  be  admitted  to  the  diplomatic  gal 
lery.  His  absence  was  of  course  much  observed,  and  besides  caus 
ing  a  social  sensation  gave. rise  to  much  unfavorable  political 
comment.  Later  he  compromised  the  matter  by  buckling  at  the 
side  of  his  ordinary  evening  dress  a  small  dress  sword  with  a 
plain  black  hilt  and  scabbard.  This  at  least  served  to  distinguish 
him  from  the  servants,  and  it  was  accepted  by  the  authorities  as 
constituting  a  "uniform."  Thus  attired  he  was  received  by  the 
queen,  and  he  expressed  in  his  correspondence  much  pride  at  hav 
ing  been  able  to  stand  ' '  in  that  brilliant  circle  in  the  simple  dress 
of  an  American  citizen."  It  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  him,  or 
to  Marcy,  that  in  thus  refusing  to  don  conventional  attire  he  was 
in  fact  practising  the  most  extreme  ostentation ;  and  that  it  was 
no  more  "undemocratic"  for  American  ministers  to  wear  a 
diplomatic  uniform  prescribed  by  their  own  Government  than 
for  American  army  and  navy  officers  to  wear  their  uniforms. 

The  period  between  the  Mexican  War  and  the  Civil  War  was 
marked  with  the  beginning  of  American  attempts  to  purchase 
Cuba  from  Spain,  or  in  some  fashion  to  annex  that  much  coveted 
island  as  an  addition  to  the  slave-holding  territory  of  the  United 
States.  Long  before  that  time  our  peculiar  interest  in  Cuba  had 
been  made  manifest.  John  Quincy  Adams,  as  secretary  of  state 
in  1823,  in  view  of  the  supposed  danger  of  French  seizure  or 
British  purchase  of  it,  in  the  war  which  then  seemed  to  be  im 
pending  between  France  and  Spain,  expressed  the  conviction 
that  the  annexation  of  Cuba  must  in  time  become  ' '  indispensable 


WILLIAM  L.  MARCY 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  537 

to  the  continuance  and  integrity  of  the  Union  itself.  The  trans 
fer  of  Cuba  to  Great  Britain, ' '  he  continued, ' '  would  be  an  event 
unpropitious  to  the  interests  of  this  Union.  The  question  both 
of  our  right  and  of  our  power  to  prevent  it,  if  necessary  by 
force,  already  obtrudes  itself  upon  our  councils,  and  the- admin 
istration  is  called  upon  in  the  performance  of  its  duties  to  the 
nation  to  use  all  the  means  within  its  competency  to  guard 
against  and  forefend  it."  Two  years  later  Clay,  as  secretary 
of  state  in  Adams 's  cabinet,  declared  that  the  United  States  was 
willing  to  leave  Cuba  in  Spain's  possession,  but  would  not  with 
indifference  see  it  passing  from  Spain  to  any  other  European 
power;  and  that  ''we  could  not  consent  to  the  occupation  of 
Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  by  any  other  European  power  than  Spain 
under  any  contingency  whatever."  A  little  later  in  the  same 
year,  1825,  the  United  States  declined  to  enter  with  Great  Britain 
and  France  into  a  tripartite  declaration  that  the  wresting  of 
Cuba  from  Spain  would  not  be  permitted,  onxthe  ground  that 
Spain  and  the  United  States  alone  were  concerned  in  that  island. 
Finally,  in  1840,  Forsyth  as  secretary  of  state  assured  the  Span 
ish  government  that  in  case  of  any  attempt,  by  any  power,  to 
wrest  Cuba  from  her,  Spain  might  "  securely  depend  upon  the 
military  and  naval  resources  of  the  United  States  to  aid  her 
either  in  preserving  or  recovering  it." 

Such  was  the  policy  of  the  United  States  in  relation  to  Cuba 
down  to  the  time  of  Folk's  administration.  Then  there  came  a 
change.  In  1848  Saunders,  the  American  minister  at  Madrid, 
was  instructed  to  sound  the  Spanish  government  as  to  the  terms 
in  which  it  would  sell  Cuba  to  the  United  States.  The  answer 
was  emphatic.  It  was  that  under  no  circumstances  would  any 
offer  be  considered.  No  Spanish  minister  would  dare  to  enter 
tain  such  a  proposal.  Such  was  the  feeling  of  the  nation  that 
it  would  rather  see  Cuba  sunk  in  the  sea  than  transferred  to  any 
other  power.  The  overtures  for  purchase  were  thereupon  aban 
doned,  but  unfortunately  other  and  less  worthy  measures  were 
resorted  to,  though  not  by  the  Government.  Narcisso  Lopez,  an 
adventurer  from  Venezuela,  came  to  the  United  States  and  be 
gan  organizing  a  filibustering  expedition,  which  was  to  land 
in  Cuba  and  lead  a  revolution  there.  In  this  he  was  eagerly 
aided  by  many  Americans,  who  saw  in  the  scheme  a  chance  to 


538  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

wrest  Cuba  from  Spain  as  Texas  had  been  wrested  from  Mexico. 
The  Spanish  minister  at  Washington,  Calderon  de  la  Barca, 
called  attention  to  what  was  going  on,  and  protested  strongly 
against  such  violation  of  neutrality;  but  in  vain.  The  Govern 
ment  was  sincerely  desirous  of  maintaining  the  neutrality  laws, 
and  in  1849  President  Taylor  issued  a  vigorous  proclamation 
against  filibustering,  which  had  the  effect  of  preventing  the  de 
parture  of  Lopez 's  first  expedition.  But  the  sentiment  and  sym 
pathies  of  the  people  in  the  Southern  States  were  so  strongly 
with  the  filibusters  that  the  laws  could  not  be  enforced,  and  the 
second  expedition  got  away  in  triumph.  It  proved  a  disas 
trous  failure,  and  Lopez  fled  back  to  Key  "West,  while  a  number 
of  his  followers  were  captured  in  Cuba  and  were  tried  for  piracy. 
They  would  doubtless  have  been  put  to  death  had  not  our  Gov 
ernment  interested  itself  vigorously  in  their  behalf ;  .when,  after 
much  trouble,  "Webster  secured  their  release  through  the  agency 
of  Barringer,  the  American  minister  at  Madrid. 

Meantime  Lopez  himself  was  put  on  trial  in  the  United  States 
for  violation  of  the  neutrality  laws,  but  no  jury  could  be  found 
in  the  Southern  States  which  would  convict  him,  even  on  the 
plainest  evidence  of  his  guilt,  and  he  was  accordingly  acquitted. 
He  immediately  organized  another  expedition  with  which  he 
invaded  Cuba  in  1851.  There  he  failed  to  receive  the  support 
which  he  had  expected  and  which  Cuban  refugees  had  assured 
him  he  would  get,  and  he  and  about  fifty  of  his  followers,  the 
latter  including  a  number  of  young  men  belonging  to  prominent 
families  in  our  Southern  States,  were  captured,  summarily  tried 
by  court  martial,  and  put  to  death.  The  news  of  this  tragedy, 
which  was  perfectly  justifiable  under  Spanish  law,  roused  a 
storm  of  wrath  in  the  South,  and  at  New  Orleans,  where  most 
of  the  filibusters  belonged,  a  mob  stormed  and  destroyed  the 
Spanish  consulate,  defaced  a  portrait  of  the  Spanish  queen,  and 
looted  a  number  of  shops  owned  by  Spanish  merchants.  In  this 
episode  the  United  States  was  of  course  so  clearly  in  the  wrong 
that  there  could  be  no  thought  of  action  against  Spain  for  put 
ting  to  death  the  American  prisoners.  Webster,  however,  se 
cured  the  release  of  some  remaining  captives  through  the 
straightforward  course  of  apologizing  for  the  New  Orleans  out 
rage  and  recommending  to  Congress  the  voting  of  an  adequate 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  539 

indemnity  for  the  damage.  In  doing  this,  it  is  true,  "Webster 
took  occasion  to  remind  the  Spanish  government  that  it  had 
technically  no  valid  claim  against  the  United  States,  which  was 
not  bound  to  give  Spanish  subjects  domiciled  here  any  more  pro 
tection  against  mob  violence  than  it  gave  its  own  citizens;  and 
that  its  appeal  for  redress  and  reparation  must  be  made,  if  at 
all,  to  the  municipality  of  New  Orleans  or  to  the  State  of  Lou 
isiana.  Of  course  any  such  appeal  would  have  been  vain,  since 
popular  sentiment  was  overwhelmingly  on  the  side  of  the  rioters 
and  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  secure  a  jury  which  would 
render  a  verdict  of  conviction.  There  was  involved  in  the  mat 
ter  the  same  issue  that  had  arisen  so  greatly  to  the  reproach  and 
injury  of  the  republic  during  the  era  of  the  Confederation,  the 
issue  between  state  and  national  authority.  It  seemed  pitiable 
and  humiliating  to  confess  that  the  United  States  had  no  power 
to  protect  or  to  give  legal  redress  to  the  subjects  and  officials 
of  another  sovereign  State  with  which  it  had  treaty  relations, 
or  even  to  punish  the  most  flagrant  crimes  against  them,  but  must 
remit  the  case  to  local  authorities  which  were  not  parties  to  any 
treaty.  Yet  that  was  what  Webster  had  to  do,  and  his  course 
was  afterward  repeatedly  sustained  by  his  successors  as  in  ac 
cordance  with  American  law.  In  such  circumstances  his  offer 
of  reparation  was  an  entirely  gratuitous  act  of  courtesy,  which 
reflected  much  credit  upon  him  and  upon  the  nation.  Palmer- 
ston,  the  British  foreign  secretary,  pronounced  it  "  highly  cred 
itable  to  the  good  faith  and  sense  of  justice  of  the  United  States 
government."  The  Spanish  government,  however,  was  not  alto 
gether  mollified,  and  its  Cuban  administration  thereafter  ex 
hibited  much  animosity  toward  Americans.  Many  harsh  imposi 
tions  were  put  upon  American  merchants,  for  which  no  redress 
could  be  had,  and  relations  between  the  two  countries  became 
ominously  strained. 

Spain  had  unquestionably  ground  for  feeling  aggrieved  at 
.the  United  States.  It  may  be  granted  that  the  intentions  and 
the  conduct  of  the  American  government  were  friendly  and  law 
ful.  It  must  also  be  recognized  that  they  were  inefficient  for 
the  prevention  of  serious  wrongs  to  Spain.  Certainly  the  inten 
tions  and  the  conduct  of  a  considerable  part  of  the  American 
people  were  wholly  lawless  and  hostile  to  Spain,  and  conspicuous 


540  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

among  the  offenders  were  men  standing  high  in  official  life  or 
exerting  great  political  influence.  It  is  not  always  possible  to 
discriminate  between  what  a  man  does  as  a  private  citizen  and 
as  a  member  of  Congress  or  other  public  officer;  or  indeed  be 
tween  the  official  and  the  popular  attitude  of  a  country.  When 
a  widespread  and  numerous  organization,  the  "  Order  of  the 
Lone  Star,"  comprising  many  men  of  light  and  leading,  openly 
proclaimed  its  purpose  to  be  the  looting  of  Spain  by  the  seizure 
of  Cuba,  and  shipped  men  and  munitions  to  aid  the  revolt  in 
that  island,  it  was  not  strange  if  Spain,  accustomed  herself  to 
regarding  such  things  as  existing  only  with  the  permission  and 
sanction  of  the  government,  assumed  our  government  to  be  re 
sponsible  for  it.  There  was,  however,  another  influence  at  work, 
which  was  unquestionably  potent  in  stiffening  Spanish  resent 
ment  and  animosity.  That  was  the  attitude,  if  not  indeed  the 
direct  representations,  of  the  British  government,  which  was 
then  not  altogether  cordial  to  the  United  States  and  which  gave 
Spain  cause  to  believe  that  she  could  count  upon  its  support. 
In  1851  the  British  and  French  governments  announced  that 
their  navies  had  been  instructed  to  prevent  filibustering  expedi 
tions  from  the  United  States  against  Cuba.  That  was  unwar 
rantable  meddling  in  affairs  which  concerned  only  Spain  and  the 
United  States,  for  which  no  justification  could  be  found  in  in 
ternational  law,  and  it  provoked  from  Crittenden,  who  was  act 
ing  as  secretary  of  state  during  Webster's  illness,  a  vigorous 
protest,  and  a  warning  that  it  would  not  be  permitted  by  this 
government.  But  of  course  it  greatly  ingratiated  the  Spanish 
government  and  persuaded  it  that  Great  Britain  was  its  friend 
and  would  aid  it  in  any  clash  with  the  United  States. 

Following  this,  Spain  made  a  direct  appeal  to  Great  Britain 
for  treaty  guarantees  against  American  aggression,  with  the 
result  that  in  April,  1852,  the  British  government  proposed  to 
the  United  States  that  this  country  should  join  it  and  France 
in  a  tripartite  convention,  all  guaranteeing  Spain  in  the  posses 
sion  of  Cuba,  and  all  explicitly  renouncing  any  designs  of  their 
own  for  the  acquisition  of  that  island.  Edward  Everett  was 
then  acting  as  secretary  of  state,  and  he  replied  with  a  firm  and 
positive  refusal  to  enter  into  any  such  compact,  on  the  ground 
that  American  interests  in  Cuba  and  relations  toward  that  island 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  541 

were  radically  different  from  those  of  any  other  power.  That 
was  quite  true,  and  it  was  a  perfectly  logical  and  commendable 
application  of  the  principle  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  of  the 
traditional  policy  of  the  United  States  to  refuse  to  admit  such 
European  intervention  in  American  affairs,  or  in  affairs  ex 
clusively  concerning  America  and  a  single  European  power.  We 
had  long  before  laid  down  the  rule  that  a  European  power  must 
not  transfer  its  American  possessions  to  another  European  power, 
in  the  cases  of  Louisiana,  of  Florida,  and  of  Cuba  itself;  and  a 
convincing  corollary  thereof  prohibited  any  such  guarantee  of 
European  possessions  here  by  other  European  powers;  though 
Jefferson  on  one  occasion  had  advocated  precisely  such  a  tri 
partite  compact.  The  weak  point  in  our  position  was,  of  course, 
the  notorious  inclination  of  this  country  to  acquire  Cuba  for 
itself,  by  fair  means  or  foul.  But  that,  after  all,  was  a  matter 
between  us  and  Spain,  with  which  neither  Great  Britain  nor 
France  had  any  legitimate  concern. 

The  accession  of  Pierce  to  the  Presidency  and  of  the  strenuous 
and  aggressive  Marcy  to  the  secretaryship  of  state  was  expected 
to  lead  promptly  to  the  annexation  of  Cuba,  even  at  the  cost  of 
war  with  Spain.  Doubtless  Marcy,  a  strong  expansionist,  would 
have  welcomed  annexation,  though  he  was  not  enamored  of  the 
extension  of  slavery;  and  he  probably  would  not  have  shrunk 
from  the  contingency  of  a  war  with  Spain  or  indeed  with  any 
other  power.  But  Marcy  was  both  a  lawyer  and  a  statesman, 
and  he  carefully  considered  all  sides  of  the  subject,  with  cool 
and  conservative  calculation,  and  resisted  all  efforts  to  stampede 
the  Government  into  a  course  for  which  there  was  not  full  justifi 
cation.  This  prudent  policy  was  not  pleasing  to  the  impetuous 
pro-slavery  propagandists  of  the  South,  who  were  exasperated 
at  the  disappointment  of  their  designs  in  Texas  and  California 
and  were  passionately  eager  to  gain  recompense  therefor  in  the 
acquisition  of  Cuba.  It  was  unfortunate  for  Marcy,  and  indeed 
for  the  good  fame  of  the  nation,  that  he  felt  constrained  to 
acquiesce  in  the  sending  of  Pierre  Soule  to  replace  the  resolute 
but  conservative  Barringer  as  minister  to  Spain.  For  Soule,  a 
man  of  French  birth  and  over-gifted  with  the  impulsiveness  and 
idealism  of  that  race,  had  been  a  political  conspirator  and 
prisoner  in  France,  had  come  hither  as  a  refugee,  and  then,  as 


542  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

a  Louisianian,  had  been  in  the  closest  and  most  active  sympathy 
with  the  filibustering  enterprises  and  even  with  the  anti- Spanish 
mob  at  New  Orleans,  and  was  known  to  be  -an  ardent  advocate 
of  the  annexation  of  Cuba.  The  choice  of  such  a  man  as  minis 
ter  to  Spain  was  extraordinary,  and  might  reasonably  have  been 
regarded  as  intentionally  provocative. 

Marcy  was  presumably  apprehensive  of  the  outcome  of  such 
a  mission,  for  he  was  particularly  explicit  and  emphatic  in  his 
instructions  to  Soule,  urging  him  to  avoid  anything  which  might 
increase  Spanish  irritation,  and  to  be  exceedingly  cautious  in 
overtures  for  the  annexation  of  Cuba.  He  instructed  him,  how 
ever,  to  be  firm  in  demanding  reparation  for  the  gross  outrages 
which  Americans  had  suffered  in  Cuba,  and  in  urging  the  Span 
ish  government  to  invest  the  Cuban  governor  or  captain-general 
with  diplomatic  authority  and  functions,  so  that  complaints 
could  be  addressed  to  him  and  matters  be  negotiated  with  him, 
instead  of  their  all  being  referred  to  the  Government  at  Madrid. 
He  finally  authorized  him  to  negotiate  for  the  purchase  of  Cuba, 
if  he  found  the  Spanish  government  inclined  to  such  a  transac 
tion.  But  Soule  was  not  to  be  bound  by  any  such  prudent  coun 
sels.  He  went  to  Spain  by  the  way  of  France,  which  in  itself 
was  injudicious ;  and  although  as  an  American  citizen  and  diplo 
matic  envoy  he  was  of  course  permitted  to  pass  through  the 
country  in  which  he  had  been  a  prisoner  of  state,  he  had  to  do 
so  under  police  surveillance.  This  circumstance  revived  his  old 
animosity  toward  the  French  government,  and  especially  toward 
Louis  Napoleon,  who  cordially  reciprocated  his  hatred,  and  on 
his  arrival  at  Madrid  he  quickly  became  involved  in  hostilities 
with  the  French  party  there.  Arrayed  against  him  were  the 
mother  of  the  French  Empress  Eugenie ;  the  French  ambassador ; 
the  Duke  of  Alva,  brother  of  Eugenie;  and  the  Spanish  minister 
for  foreign  affairs,  Calderon  de  la  Barca,  who  had  formerly  been 
minister  to  the  United  States  and  with  whom  at  Washington 
Soule  had  violently  quarreled.  In  these  circumstances  Soule 's 
position  at  Madrid  verged  upon  the  preposterously  impossible. 
He  might  have  redeemed  his  mission  by  discreet  conduct,  but 
instead  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  wildest  extravagances.  Be 
cause  of  a  supposed  slight  to  Mrs.  Soule,  soon  after  his  arrival, 
his  son  fought  a  duel  with  the  Duke  of  Alva,  and  he  himself 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  543 

fought  another  with  the  French  ambassador,  in  which  the  latter 
was  crippled  for  life. 

This  was  a  bad  beginning,  but  worse  followed.  News  came 
that  an  American  steamer,  the  Black  Warrior,  had  been  seized 
by  the  Cuban  authorities  at  Havana.  The  circumstances  of  the 
seizure  were  certainly  provoking,  and  it  is  impossible  to  avoid 
belief  that  they  were  deliberately  intended  to  be  so.  The  vessel 
had  long  been  making  regular  and  entirely  legitimate  trips  to 
that  port.  But  on  the  latest  of  them  she  was  arbitrarily  seized 
and  her  cargo  was  condemned;  not  for  filibustering  or  illicit 
trade  but  for  alleged  disregard  of  some  obsolete  port  regulations 
which  had  long  been  ignored.  In  consequence,  the  master  of 
the  vessel  felt  constrained  to  abandon  her  altogether.  The  Presi 
dent  reported  the  incident  to  Congress,  and  stated  that  a  de 
mand  for  redress  and  indemnity  was  being  made.  Some  violent 
speeches  were  made  in  Congress  by  Southern  members,  and  there 
were  even  demands  for  war  and  the  conquest  of  Cuba.  Marcy, 
however,  kept  his  head,  and  instructed  Soule  to  demand  an  in 
demnity  of  $300,000  and  to  express  a  hope  that  the  Cuban  au 
thorities  would  be  appropriately  rebuked  for  an  act  which  it 
was  confidently  assumed  the  Spanish  government  could  not  ap 
prove.  A  fine  opportunity  was  thus  presented  to  Soule,  for 
Spain  was  manifestly  in  the  wrong;  but  with  characteristic  in 
discretion  he  not  only  failed  to  improve  it  but  actually  used  it 
as  a  means  of  still  further  compromising  his  mission.  He  at 
first,  indeed,  followed  his  instructions  closely,  in  an  interview 
with  the  Spanish  minister  for  foreign  affairs.  But  when  three 
days  elapsed  without  bringing  him  a  satisfactory  reply,  he  flew 
into  a  passion  and  sent  the  minister  a  note  in  which  he  went  far 
beyond  his  instructions.  He  demanded  not  only  the  indemnity 
which  Marcy  had  prescribed  but  also  the  immediate  dismissal 
from  the  Spanish  service  of  all  persons  implicated  in  the  outrage 
upon  the  Black  Warrior.  He  added  a  peremptory  and  ulti 
matum-like  demand  that  all  this  should  be  done  within  forty- 
eight  hours  under  penalty  of  at  once  giving  him  his  passports 
and  severing  diplomatic  relations  between  the  two  countries. 
Soule  even  instructed  his  messenger  on  delivering  the  note  to 
the  Spanish  minister  to  point  to  the  clock  and  remind  him  that 
in  exactly  forty-eight  hours  from  that  moment  an  answer  would 


544  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

be  required.  The  case  was  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  it  oc 
curred  in  Holy  "Week,  when  it  was  not  customary  at  Madrid  to 
transact  business  which  could  possibly  be  postponed.  Calderon, 
however,  with  punctilious  courtesy,  replied  within  twenty-four 
hours,  to  the  effect  that  the  matter  would  be  most  carefully  con 
sidered  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  but  that  it  was  mani 
festly  not  practicable  nor  would  it  be  just  to  dispose  of  so  grave 
a  matter  so  hastily  and  upon  the  hearing  of  only  one  side  of  it. 
He  added,  quite  properly,  that  the  Spanish  government  was 
not  accustomed  to  being  addressed  in  so  harsh  and  imperious  a 
manner,  which  it  could  not  regard  as  the  most  adequate  for 
attaining  the  amicable  settlement  which  was  desired.  Intem 
perate  conduct  had,  of  course,  placed  Soule  at  a  hopeless  disad 
vantage.  He  could  do  nothing  but  send  his  unauthorized  ulti 
matum  and  Calderon 's  dignified  and  temperate  reply  to  Marcy. 
Probably  he  expected,  and  certainly  he  hoped,  that  Marcy  would 
support  the  attitude  he  had  taken,  and  would  instruct  him  im 
mediately  to  demand  his  passports  and  quit  Madrid.  But  Marcy 
had  no  thought  of  doing  so.  He  probably  would  not  have  done 
so  in  any  event,  but  it  was  out  of  the  question  for  him  to  consider 
it  in  the  then  existing  circumstances,  for  before  Soule 's  corre 
spondence  reached  Washington  the  Cuban  authorities  had  re 
stored  the  Black  Warrior  to  her  owners  with  the  amplest  possible 
amends,  and  the  whole  incident  was  ended  and  on  the  way  to  be 
forgotten.  So  Soule  was  left  to  eat  his  own  words. 

Marcy,  however,  still  cherished  the  desire  to  annex  Cuba, 
partly  for  the  sake  of  securing  so  valuable  a  property  for  the 
United  States  and  partly  to  remove  what  he  saw  would  be  a 
perennial  cause  of  annoyance  and  even  of  danger;  though  he 
contemplated  nothing  more  than  purchase  through  amicable  ne 
gotiations.  "With  this  end  in  view  he  directed  Soule  to  place  him 
self  in  conference  with  the  American  ministers  to  Great  Britain 
and  France,  to  consider  the  best  method  of  persuading  Spain 
to  dispose  of  Cuba  and  of  avoiding  objection  on  the  part  of  the 
other  two  powers.  Now  Buchanan,  at  London,  was  a  Northern 
man  with  strong  Southern  sympathies,  while  Mason,  at  Paris, 
was  an  ardent  Southern  advocate  of  the  extension  of  slavery. 
When  the  three  came  together  at  Ostend,  in  the  summer  of  1854, 
and  later  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  therefore,  they  naturally  took  ex- 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  545 

tremely  aggressive  ground.  They  signed  and  sent  to  Marcy, 
in  October  of  that  year,  the  extraordinary  document  known  as 
the  Ostend  Manifesto,  as  the  result  of  their  deliberations.  In 
this  document,  which  was  chiefly  written  by  Soule,  various  rea 
sons  were  set  forth  why  Cuba  ought  to  belong  to  the  United 
States,  foremost  of  them  being  that  such  acquisition  was  neces 
sary  for  the  security  of  the  slave  system;  why  Spain  ought  to 
sell  it;  and  why  the  other  European  powers  ought  to  acquiesce 
in  the  transfer.  The  price,  it  continued,  ought  not  to  exceed 
a  certain  maximum,  which  was  not  stated  but  which  was  un 
derstood  to  be  $120,000,000.  Then,  with  almost  incredible 
cynicism  and  effrontery,  it  was  added  that  if  Spain  should  be  so 
"dead  to  the  voice  of  her  own  interest  and  actuated  by  a  false 
sense  of  honor"  as  to  refuse  to  sell  Cuba,  then  "by  every  law 
human  and  divine"  the  United  States  would  be  justified  in 
wresting  it  from  her,  if  it  had  the  power  to  do  so.  The  specious 
pretext  was  added  that  such  seizure  would  be  made  to  protect 
the  internal  peace  of  the  United  States.  Soule  sent  this  astound 
ing  document  to  Marcy,  with  the  suggestion  that  that  was  a  good 
time  to  begin  war  upon  Spain,  since  Great  Britain  and  France 
were  engaged  in  fighting  Russia  in  the  Crimea  and  would  there 
fore  be  unable  to  intervene  in  Spain's  behalf. 

The  receipt  of  this  message  both  astounded  and  embarrassed 
Marcy.  He  could  not  for  a  moment  think  of  approving  it,  and 
he  knew  that  the  weight  of  American  opinion  would  be  against 
it.  Even  in  the  South  all  but  the  most  extreme  realized  that 
Soule  and  his  colleagues  had  gone  too  far,  while  the  North  was 
almost  unanimous  in  denouncing  the  "manifesto"  as  an  act  of 
potential  brigandage.  In  Great  Britain  and  on  the  Continent 
a  most  unfortunate  impression  was  produced,  and  the  good  re 
pute  of  American  diplomacy  was  seriously  impaired.  In  these 
circumstances  Marcy  discreetly  refused  to  recognize  the  obvious 
purport  of  the  "manifesto."  He  affected  to  assume  that  it  did 
not  recommend  the  alternative  of  cession  or  seizure,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  argue  the  inadmissibility  of  such  a  course.  If  Spain 
was  unwilling  to  sell,  he  said,  the  negotiations  must  necessarily 
be  abandoned.  This  was  doubtless  the  wisest  course  that  Marcy 
could  have  pursued.  Had  he  taken  this  "manifesto"  at  its  real 
meaning,  his  repudiation  and  rebuke  of  it,  no  matter  how  severe, 

VOL.  1—35 


546  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

would  still  have  left  an  opportunity  for  complaint  on  the  part 
of  Spain.  But  by  pretending  that  it  did  not  mean  any  such 
thing  he  protected  himself  and  the  United  States  against  such 
representations,  while  the  palpable  irony  of  his  tone  was  far 
more  stinging  to  Soule  than  direct  censure  would  have  been. 
Soule  was  unspeakably  chagrined  and  enraged,  and  at  once  re 
signed  his  office ;  and  thus  the  episode  came  to  a  serio-comic  end. 
A  few  years  later,  in  December,  1858,  Buchanan,  then  President 
sought  to  revive  it  in  his  second  annual  message.  He  referred 
to  the  possibility  of  its  being  at  some  time  necessary  to  seize 
Cuba  under  "the  law  of  self  -preservation/ '  and  at  his  request 
a  bill  was  introduced  into  Congress  appropriating  $30,000,000 
for  the  purchase  of  the  island;  but  no  decisive  vote  was  ever 
taken  on  it.  A  year  later  he  again  mentioned  the  subject,  but 
his  reference  to  it  was  ignored. 

While  these  things  were  going  on  at  the  South,  a  highly  im 
portant  change  in  foreign  relations  was  being  effected  in  the 
North.  Ever  since  the  treaty  of  1818  had  been  made  with 
Great  Britain,  supposedly  for  the  definition  of  American  rights 
in  the  North  Atlantic  fisheries,  there  had  been  dispute  concern 
ing  its  interpretation  and  application.  One  of  the  chief  points 
of  dispute  was  whether  the  line  marking  the  three-mile  limit 
of  territorial  waters  should  follow  all  the  windings  of  the  coast, 
or  should  be  drawn  boldly,  straight  across  from  headland  to 
headland  so  as  to  include  such  bodies  of  water  as  the  Bay  of 
Fundy  and  the  Bay  of  Chaleurs  within  the  territorial  limits  and 
make  them  closed  seas.  The  Canadians  and  Newfoundlanders 
inclined  to  this  latter  interpretation,  while  Americans  were  in 
sistent  upon  the  former.  Another  question  was  whether  the 
Strait  of  Canso,  between  Nova  Scotia  and  Cape  Breton,  which 
in  some  places  is  not  more  than  a  mile  wide,  should  be  regarded 
as  a  part  of  the  two  high  seas  which  it  connects,  or  whether 
vessels  passing  through  it  should  be  required  to  pay  tolls,  as  in 
inland  waters.  Much  friction  arose  over  these  matters,  and  ill 
feeling  was  engendered  between  the  two  countries. 

About  1847,  however,  the  adoption  of  the  free  trade  system 
in  Great  Britain  began  to  affect  the  commercial  relations  of  that 
country  and  its  colonies.  The  ports  of  the  United  Kingdom  were 
open  to  the  commerce  of  all  countries,  and  Canadian  trade,  hav- 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  547 

ing  no  preferential  privileges  there,  was  crowded  out  by  more 
successful  rivals.  In  these  circumstances  Canada  turned  to  the 
United  States  for  a  market,  and  finding  herself  barred  out  by 
the  American  tariff  asked  for  a  system  of  reciprocity  and  offered 
in  return  for  access  to  American  markets  to  grant  American 
fishermen  the  largest  possible  freedom  in  Canadian  coast  waters. 
Our  Congress  declined  to  consider  the  proposal  favorably,  and 
the  strife  over  the  fisheries  continued.  An  increased  British 
naval  force  was  placed  on  the  Canadian  coast,  to  terrorize  Ameri 
can  fishermen,  in  the  hope  of  thus  coercing  the  United  States 
into  granting  reciprocity.  The  effect  was  chiefly  to  arouse 
a  strong  sentiment  in  favor  of  reprisals,  in  sending  an  American 
naval  force  to  the  scene;  and  one  was  sent,  Webster  as  secre 
tary  of  state  declaring  that  American  fishermen  should  be  pro 
tected,  "hook  and  line,  bob  and  sinker."  A  British  agent  came 
hither  to  seek  adjustment  of  the  trouble,  but  in  vain,  and  talk 
of  war  began  to  arise.  In  1854,  however,  Lord  Elgin,  the  Gov 
ernor-General  of  Canada,  came  to  the  United  States  for  the  pur 
pose  of  negotiating  a  commercial  treaty.  He  was  accompanied 
by  a  large  staff  of  secretaries  and  other  assistants,  and  was 
cordially  welcomed  at  Washington,  although  at  first  little  en 
couragement  was  given  to  his  hopes  of  success.  Marcy  told  him 
frankly  that  while  he  was  himself  in  favor  of  making  a  reci 
procity  treaty,  there  would  be  no  chance  of  getting  it  ratified 
in  the  Senate,  as  the  senators  of  Marcy 's  own  party  were  opposed 
to  it.  But  Elgin  refused  to  be  discouraged.  He  addressed 
himself  socially  to  the  senators,  and  in  the  course  of  a  week 
or  two  so  ingratiated  himself  personally  as  to  win  them  to 
a  more  favorable  view  of  his  mission.  A  treaty  was  negotiated 
and  was  signed  on  June  5,  1854,  providing  for  free  trade  be 
tween  the  United  States  and  Canada  in  all  the  natural  products 
of  both  land  and  sea,  for  the  reciprocal  privilege  of  fishing  in  all 
coast  waters,  and  the  free  reciprocal  navigation  of  all  rivers, 
canals,  and  straits.  This  treaty  was  ratified  by  the  Senate,  and 
had  the  fortunate  results  of  putting  an  end  to  the  fisheries  dis 
pute  and  of  greatly  increasing  trade  between  the  two  countries. 
It  was  made  for  a  term  of  ten  years,  at  the  end  of  which,  in 
1865,  it  was  terminated  by  an  act  of  the  American  Congress, 
not  on  its  own  merits,  or  its  lack  of  merits,  for  despite  some 


548  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

faults  it  was  really  highly  beneficial  to  both  countries,  but  be 
cause  of  ill-feelings  growing  out  of  our  Civil  War  and  the  Cana 
dian  sympathies  with  the  Southern  Confederacy. 

During  the  administration  of  President  Buchanan,  Lewis  Cass 
was  secretary  of  state;  a  man  of  advanced  years  and  inactive 
habits,  and  American  diplomacy  was  much  of  the  time  in  a 
quiet  slack-water.  One  of  its  successes  was  attained  in  a  some 
what  dubious  manner,  namely,  by  disputing  the  British  right 
to  interfere  with  the  American  slave  trade.  The  anti-slavery 
agitation  in  the  United  States  had  increased  the  value  of  slaves, 
and  there  was  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  activity  of  slave 
traders,  between  Africa  and  the  United  States,  despite  the  illegal 
status  of  that  traffic.  In  fact,  the  Buchanan  administration  was 
either  unable  or  unwilling  to  enforce  the  law  against  it — perhaps 
both.  British  vessels  were  active  in  repressing  it,  however,  and 
in  so  doing  frequently  fired  upon,  stopped,  and  searched  Ameri 
can  vessels  which  were  suspected  of  being  slavers,  not  only  on  the 
African  coast  but  even  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Cass  vigorously 
protested  against  this,  recalling  the  fact  that  the  War  of  1812 
had  been  fought  largely  to  protect  American  vessels  from  such 
1 '  outrages, ' '  and  at  his  request  the  secretary  of  the  navy  ordered 
American  warships  to  those  waters  to  prevent  any  further  pro 
ceedings  of  that  kind.  Cass  wrote  on  April  10,  1858,  to  Lord 
Napier,  the  British  minister,  a  powerful  letter  upon  the  subject, 
in  which  he  declared  that  for  an  officer  to  board  the  vessel  of 
another  nation,  take  command  of  her,  examine  her  papers,  pass 
judgment  upon  her  character,  decide  whether  she  was  or  was 
not  complying  with  the  laws  of  her  own  country,  and  send  her 
to  port  for  trial,  was  something  to  which  an  independent  country 
could  not  submit.  It  had  been  argued  that  unless  search  were 
permitted  a  vessel  of  any  other  nation  might  carry  on  the  slave 
trade  with  impunity  simply  by  hoisting  the  American  flag.  To 
this  he  replied  that  such  a  vessel  would  be  entitled  to  no  pro 
tection,  but  the  vessel  stopping  and  searching  it  must  do  so  at  its 
own  risk.  "As  the  identity  of  a  person  must  be  determined  by 
the  officer  bearing  a  process  for  his  arrest,  and  determined  at  the 
risk  of  such  officer,  so  must  the  national  identity  of  a  vessel  be 
determined  at  the  like  hazard  of  him  who,  doubting  the  flag  she 
displays,  searches  her  to  ascertain  her  true  character."  His 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  549 

citations  from  British  authorities  were  copious  and  his  logic  was 
so  cogent  that  reply  was  practically  impossible.  Some  corre 
spondence  did  indeed  follow,  but  the  British  foreign  minister, 
Lord  Malmesbury,  promptly  expressed  to  the  American  minister 
at  London,  Dallas,  his  entire  assent  to  Cass  's  contention  as  to  the 
illegality  of  search,  and  in  a  written  memorandum  said :  ' '  Her 
Majesty's  government  recognizes  the  principle  of  international 
law  as  laid  down  by  General  Cass  in  his  note  of  the  10th  of 
April. ' '  Thus  at  last  was  ended  one  of  the  most  vexatious  con 
troversies  which  had  ever  arisen  between  the  two  nations,  and 
one  which  had  been  in  existence  for  just  three  quarters  of  a 
century.  This  was  indeed  a  notable  triumph  for  Cass,  though  it 
must  be  regretted  that  it  had  even  the  appearance  of  being  in 
the  interest  of  the  most  abhorrent  traffic  ever  known  to  man. 
It  was  made  the  more  complete  during  the  next  year,  when  Cass 
secured  from  the  British  and  French  governments  a  formal 
agreement  upon  rules  and  instructions  to  seamen  concerning  the 
right  of  visitation ;  in  which  the  British  government,  which  had 
once  so  strenuously  insisted  upon  the  "right  of  search,"  ex 
plicitly  instructed  its  naval  officers  that  "no  merchant  vessel 
navigating  the  high  seas  is  subject  to  any  foreign  jurisdiction. 
A  vessel  of  war  cannot,  therefore,  visit,  detain,  or  seize  (except 
under  treaty)  any  merchant  vessel  not  recognized  as  belonging 
to  her  own  nation." 

Later  in  that  administration,  on  June  27,  1859,  on  the  oc 
casion  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Italian  war  against  Austria,  Cass 
sent  important  instructions  to  the  American  ministers  through 
out  Europe,  denning  the  character  and  policy  of  the  United 
States  as  a  neutral  power,  and  particularly  setting  forth  the  prin 
ciples  by  which  this  country  was  to  be  governed  in  the  recogni 
tion  of  commercial  blockades.  This  circular  letter  was  weighty 
and  judicious,  as  an  expression  of  abstract  and  general  princi 
ples,  and  has  frequently  been  quoted  since  as  an  authority. 
It  was  effective  enough  during  the  Italian  war.  But  unfor 
tunately  its  admirable  principles  were  not  always  advantageous 
to  our  own  national  practice  in  the  Civil  War  which  began  here 
two  years  later,  and  it  had  to  be  largely  repudiated  in  the  main 
tenance  of  the  blockade  of  Confederate  ports. 

Mexican  affairs  became  increasingly  troublesome  because  of 


550  AMERICA'S  FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

the  chaotic  condition  of  that  Government,  and  in  1858  Buchanan 
recommended  that  in  order  to  stop  intolerable  outrages  upon 
American  citizens  the  United  States  should  establish  by  force  a 
protectorate  over  the  northern  part  of  that  country.  Congress 
declined,  however,  to  authorize  such  action ;  and  it  was  similarly 
irresponsive  in  the  following  year  when  Buchanan  asked  for 
authorization  to  invade  Mexico  and  reestablish  order.  The 
treaties  were  made  by  him  in  1859,  under  which  the  United 
States  was  to  assume  responsibility  for  various  foreign  claims 
against  Mexico  in  return  for  the  granting  of  valuable  and  ex 
clusive  commercial  concessions,  but  the  Senate  declined  to  ratify 
them,  or  even  so  much  as  to  consider  them ;  although  Buchanan 
gave  the  warning,  which  a  few  years  later  was  only  too  much 
justified  by  events,  that  if  the  United  States  did  not  do  something 
in  Mexico,  some  European  nation  would,  and  the  United  States 
would  be  put  to  the  task  of  dealing  with  it  as  well  as  with 
Mexico  itself,  "under  circumstances  of  increased  difficulty,  for 
the  maintenance  of  our  established  policy."  The  fact  was,  the 
North,  which  was  then  becoming  dominant  in  Congress,  sus 
pected  all  such  proposals  by  Buchanan  to  be  in  the  interest  of 
the  extension  of  slavery,  and  it  had  no  mind  to  further  the 
schemes.  Moreover,  the  aspect  of  domestic  politics  was  becom 
ing  so  ominous  as  to  forbid  any  enterprises  in  other  lands.  In 
one  direction  alone  did  Congress  assent  to  a  feature  of  Bu 
chanan's  "vigorous  and  aggressive"  foreign  policy.  That  was 
in  1857,  when  in  response  to  a  message  from  the  President  it 
authorized  the  sending  of  a  naval  expedition  of  nineteen  vessels 
to  the  little  South  American  republic  of  Paraguay  to  exact  an 
apology  for  an  insult  which  had  two  years  before  been  offered 
to  the  American  vessel  Water  Witch.  The  apology  was  made, 
a  commercial  treaty  was  negotiated,  and  an  agreement  was  made 
for  a  commission  to  investigate  an  American  claim  for  damages. 
Elsewhere  the  embarrassment  of  domestic  controversy  and  im 
pending  civil  strife  held  diplomacy  in  abeyance,  and  remitted 
to  some  unknown  future  date  the  settlement  of  various  ques 
tions  of  real  and  increasing  importance. 

The  various  treaties  and  conventions  which  were  made  by  the 
United  States  in  the  years  preceding  the  Civil  War,  including 
some  elsewhere  mentioned  and  others  calling  for  nothing  more 


SOME  VIGOROUS  SELF-ASSERTION  551 

than  enumeration,  were  as  follows :  With  Argentina,  treaties  of 
navigation,  and  of  friendship,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1855; 
Austria-Hungary,  commerce  and  navigation,  1831,  and  consular 
jurisdiction  and  personal  property,  1850;  Bavaria,  immigration 
tax,  1846 ;  Belgium,  commerce  and  navigation,  1846  and  1859 ; 
Bolivia,  peace,  friendship,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1858  and 
1863 ;  Borneo,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1850  and  1854 ; 
Brazil,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1828,  and  claims,  1849 
and  1850 ;  Brunswick  and  Luneberg,  disposal  of  personal  prop 
erty,  1855 ;  Chile,  peace,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1832 
and  1834,  and  claims,  1856 ;  China,  peace,  amity,  and  commerce, 
1844,  1846,  1858,  1860,  trade  and  tariff,  1858,  and  claims,  1858 ; 
Colombia,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1824  and  1825, 
peace,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1846  and  1848,  consular, 
1850,  and  claims,  1857  and  I860;  Costa  Rica,  friendship,  com 
merce,  and  navigation,  1851,  and  claims,  1860  and  1861 ;  Den 
mark,  friendship,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1826,  claims,  1830, 
and  Sound  dues,  1857  and  1858;  Ecuador,  peace,  friendship, 
navigation,  and  commerce,  1839  and  1842;  France,  consular, 
1853  and  1858 ;  Greece,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1837 ;  Guate 
mala,  peace,  friendship,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1849 ;  Haiti, 
amity,  commerce,  navigation,  and  extradition,  1864;  Hanover, 
commerce  and  navigation,  1840  and  1846,  and  abolishing  State 
dues,  1861;  the  Hanseatic  Cities,  friendship,  commerce,  and 
navigation,  1827,  arrest  of  deserters,  1828,  consular,  1852; 
Hesse,  immigration  tax,  1844;  Japan,  peace,  amity,  and  com 
merce,  1854,  commerce  and  consular,  1857,  commerce  and  naviga 
tion,  1858;  Loo  Choo  Islands,  friendship  and  commerce,  1854; 
Mecklenburg,  commerce  and  navigation,  1847;  Netherlands 
(Holland),  commerce  and  navigation,  1852,  consular,  1855; 
Paraguay,  friendship,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1859 ;  Persia, 
friendship  and  commerce,  1856;  Peru,  claims,  1841,  friendship, 
commerce,  and  navigation,  1851,  neutrality,  1856,  whaling  ships, 
1857;  Saxony,  immigration  tax,  1845;  Siam,  amity  and  com 
merce,  1856;  Switzerland,  property  rights,  1847,  friendship  and 
commerce,  1850;  Turkey,  commerce  and  navigation,  1830;  the 
Two  Sicilies,  claims,  1832,  commerce  and  navigation,  1845,  rights 
of  neutrals,  1855,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1855; 
Venezuela,  claims,  1859,  amity,  commerce,  and  navigation,  1860. 


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